The Foundations of Esotericism
GA 93a
1 October 1905, Berlin
Lecture VI
Today we will take as our subject the different ranks of beings to which man belongs. Man, as he is at present is a developing being who was not always as he is now. There are not only stages of development lying before and behind him, but also beings co-existent with him, just as the child today has the old man beside him who is at another stage of development. Today we will deal with seven ranks of beings, and in this connection we must clearly differentiate between receptive and creative beings.
Let us take as an example a colour which we perceive with our eyes, for instance red or green. In this respect we are receptive beings. The colour must however first be produced in order that we may perceive it; we must therefore be confronted with another being who produces the colour, for instance red. Through this we recognise the different stages of beings. If we put together everything which approaches our senses, there must also be a soul to receive it; but conversely something must also be present in order that the sense impressions may be brought to us. There are beings who can manifest. These have a more god-like or deva-character. Beings whose nature is more adapted to receiving have a more element[al] character. God-like beings are of a manifesting nature. Elemental beings are of a receptive nature.
Here, in this domain, we have the creative wisdom which manifests outwardly, and the wisdom which is received by the human soul. Wisdom is in the light and discloses itself in all sense impressions. Behind what is revealed we must assume the revealers, beings of will nature; wisdom is that which is revealed.
Man is both receptive and creative. On the one hand, for instance with regard to all sense impressions, he is receptive, with regard to thinking however he is creative. Nothing gives rise to thoughts unless he first produces perceptions. Thus he is on the one hand a receptive being and on the other hand a creative being. This is an important difference. Let us imagine that man were to be in a position to create everything he perceives, sounds, colours and so on, just as today he creates thoughts. Today he is only creative in one sphere, in thinking, and in order to have perceptions he needs creative beings around him. In bringing forth his own being he was at first creative. In the beginning he himself created his own organism. For this he now needs other beings. Now man must incarnate in a bodily form determined from outside. Here he is closer to the elemental beings than to the sphere of perception and thinking.
Let us imagine for once that man were able to bring forth sounds, colours and other sense perceptions and also his own being. Then we should have the human being as he was before the Lemurian race, who is called the “pure” man. Man becomes impure through the fact that he does not produce his own being, but incorporates something other into his nature. This pure man was called Adam Cadmon. When at the beginning of Genesis the Bible speaks of man, it speaks of this pure human being. This human being had as yet nothing kamic (astral) within him. Desire first appeared after he had incorporated other elements into himself. Thus there arose the second stage of humanity, the kama-rupic man (man with an astral body). The higher animal is to be seen as at a lower stage of this development. Without warm blood no beings can possess an independent Kama-rupa (astral body). All warm-blooded animals are derived from man.
Thus to begin with we have the pure man who up to the Lemurian Age actually led a super-sensible existence and brought forth out of himself everything that lived and was part of him.
Present day cold-blooded animals and the plants have developed in a different way from the warm-blooded animals. Those which exist today are remnants of strange, gigantic beings. Some of these can be verified by science. They are decadent animals which are descended from those which the pure man made use of in order to incarnate in them, so that he might have a body for what is kamic (astral). At first the pure man had found no means of incarnating on the earth. He still hovered above what was manifested. From among these huge, powerful beings (animals) man made use of the most developed in order to incarnate in them. He attached himself to these beings and thereby he was in a position to bring into them his own Kama (astral body). Some of these beings developed further and then became the animals of Atlantis and present day humanity. However it was not possible for all of them to adapt themselves. Those who failed became the lower vertebrate animals; kangaroos for instance are such attempts as proved unsuccessful on the way to becoming man—like pottery vessels which are rejected and left behind.
Now man tried to introduce Kama into the animal forms. Kama is first to be found in the human form, in actual fact in the heart, in the warm blood and in the circulation of the blood. Attempts were made again and again and in this way there was an ascent from stage to stage. We see unsuccessful attempts for instance in the sloths, the kangaroos, the beasts of prey, the monkeys and apes. All these remained behind on the way. The warm-blooded animals are unsuccessful attempts to become human forms endowed with Kama. Everything in them which is of the nature of Kama, man also could have within himself; but he unloaded it into them, for he was unable to use this kind of Kama. There is an important occult axiom: Every quality has two opposite poles. So we find, just as positive and negative electricity complement one another, so we have warmth and cold, day and night, light and darkness and so on. In the same way every Kamic quality also has two opposite aspects. For instance man has cast rage out of himself into the lion, and this, on the other hand, when ennobled by him, can lead him upward to his higher self. Passion should not be annihilated, but purified. The negative pole must be led upwards to a higher stage. This purifying of passion, this leading upwards of its negative aspect was called by the Pythagoreans catharsis. At first man had within him the rage of the lion and the cunning of the fox. Thus the kingdom of the warm-blooded animals is a comprehensive picture of Kama qualities. Today the opinion is commonly held that the ‘Tat twam asi’ (‘That art thou’), is to be understood as something general and undefined, but one must conceive something quite definite underlying it. Thus in the case of the lion man must say to himself: That art thou. We have therefore in the kingdom of the warm-blooded animals spread out before us the kama-rupic human being. Previously there only existed the pure man: Adam Cadmon.
The philosopher of natural science, Oken, who in the first half of the 19th century was a professor in Jena, was acquainted with all these ideas and expressed them in a grotesque way in order to nudge people to attention. Here we find an example which points to a still earlier stage of human development, before man separated off from himself the kingdom of the cold-blooded animals. Oken connected the cuttlefish with the human tongue. In this analogy of the tongue with the cuttlefish one can find an occult significance. Now we also have beings who for the first time are, as it were, being conjured up as by-products. Man has ejected from himself the cunning of the fox and retained its opposite pole. In the fox's cunning however the germ of something else is beginning to develop, for example something similar to the way in which the black shadow of an object has a secondary shadow when light enters it from outside. We incorporated cunning into the fox out of our inner being. Now spirit is directed towards him from the periphery. The beings which in this way work from the periphery into what is kamic are elemental beings. What the fox has received from us, is in him animal; what coming from outside attaches itself to him from the spirit, is elemental being. On the one hand he originated through the spirit of humanity and on the other hand through an Elemental being.
Thus we differentiate: firstly, elemental beings, secondly, the kama-rupic man, thirdly, the pure man, fourthly, the man who in a certain respect has overcome the pure man, who has taken into himself what is outside and around him and is creatively active. He has contacted and taken into himself everything which is around him in earthly existence. This gives him the plans, the directions, the laws which create life. Once man was perfect and he will become so again. But there is a great difference between what he was and what he will become. What is around him in the outer world will later become his spiritual possession. What he has won for himself on the Earth will later become the faculty of being creatively active. This will then have become his innermost being. One who has absorbed all earthly experiences, so that he knows how to make use of every single thing and has thus become a creator, is called a Bodhisattva, which means a man who has taken into himself to a sufficient degree the Bodhi, the Buddhi of the earth. Then he is advanced enough to work creatively out of his innermost impulses. The wise men of the earth are not yet Bodhisattvas.24See: The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego Consciousness, lecture 1, 25.10.1909 and From Buddha to Christ 21.9.1911. Even for such a one there always remain things to which he is still unable to orient himself. Only when one has absorbed into oneself the entire knowledge of the Earth, in order to be able to create, only then is one a Bodhisattva; Buddha, Zarathustra, for example, were Bodhisattvas.
When man ascends still further in evolution, so that he is not only a creator on the Earth, but possesses forces which reach out above the Earth, only then is he free to choose either to use these higher forces or to work further with them on the Earth. In this case he can bring into the Earth something coming from higher worlds. Such an epoch occurred before man began to incarnate, in the last third of the Lemurian Age. The human being had developed his physical, etheric and astral bodies. He had brought these members of his being with him from an earlier Earth evolution. The two next impulses, Kama and Manas, he could not have found on the Earth; they do not lie in its evolutionary sequence. The first new impulse (Kama) was only to be found as a force on Mars. It was added shortly before man incarnated. The second impulse (Manas) came from Mercury in the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, with the original Semites. The stimulus of these new principles had to be brought to the Earth from other planets through still higher beings, through the Nirmana-kayas. From Mars they added Kama, from Mercury Manas. The Nirmana-kayas are yet another stage higher than the Bodhisattvas. The latter are able to order evolution which has continuity; but they cannot bring into it what comes from other regions, this can only be done by the Nirmana-kayas. [In] yet another stage higher than the Nirmana-kayas, stand those beings who are called Pitris. Pitris = Fathers. For the Nirmana-kayas can indeed bring something coming from other regions into evolution, but they cannot sacrifice themselves, sacrifice themselves as substance, so that on the following planet they can bring forth a new cycle. This can be done by the Pitris, beings who had evolved on the Moon and had now come over; they became the activating impulse towards Earth evolution. When man has gone through every possible experience, then he is in a position to become a Pitri. The next and even higher stage, the last that it is possible to mention, is that of the Gods themselves.
Thus we have seven ranks of beings: Firstly the Gods, secondly Pitris, thirdly Nirmana-kayas, fourthly Bodhisattvas, fifthly pure human beings, sixthly human beings, seventhly elemental beings. This is the sequence of which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky speaks.
Now we can add the question: What kind of organ is it which has made man kama-rupic? It is the heart with the veins and the blood that pulsates through the body. The heart has a physical part and an etheric part. Aristotle25Here Rudolf Steiner is presumably referring to the minor scientific writings (Parva naturalia) ‘On Youth and Age, Life and Death’. speaks about this, for in earlier times it was only the etheric man which was held to be important. The heart has also an astral part. The etheric heart is connected with the twelve-petalled lotus flower. Not all the physical organs have an astral part; for example the gall bladder is only physical and etheric, the astral is lacking.
VI
Wir wollen uns heute die Stufenfolge der Wesenheiten, zu denen der Mensch gehört, vorführen. Der Mensch ist eben, so wie er jetzt ist, ein Wesen, das geworden ist, das nicht immer so war wie jetzt. Er hat nicht nur andere Stufen vor und hinter sich, sondern auch neben sich, so wie das Kind heute den Greis neben sich hat als andere Entwickelungsstufe. Wir wollen uns heute sieben Stufen von Wesenheiten vorführen. Dazu müssen wir uns erst den Unterschied klarmachen zwischen empfangenden und schöpferischen Wesenheiten.
Mit unserem Auge nehmen wir zum Beispiel eine Farbe, Rot oder Grün wahr. Insofern sind wir empfangende Wesen. Die Farbe muß aber erst hervorgebracht werden, damit wir sie wahrnehmen können; es steht uns also ein Wesen gegenüber, welches die Farbe, zum Beispiel das Rot hervorbringt. Hierdurch erkennt man die Stufenfolge der Wesenheiten. Wenn man alles, was unseren Sinnen entgegentritt, zusammenfaßt, so muß die Seele da sein, damit es empfangen werden kann; aber es muß auch das Gegenteilige davon da sein, damit es uns entgegengebracht werden kann. Es gibt Wesenheiten, die offenbaren können. Diese haben einen mehr göttlichen oder Devacharakter. Wesenheiten, die mehr zum Empfangen geeignet sind, haben einen mehr elementaren Charakter. Göttliche Wesenheiten sind offenbarender Natur. Elementarwesen sind empfangender Natur.
Hier haben wir auf diesem Gebiete die schöpferische Weisheit, die draußen schafft, und die Weisheit, die empfangen wird von der menschlichen Seele. Im Lichte ist Weisheit und in allen Sinneswahrnehmungen enthüllt sie sich. Hinter dem, was sich offenbart, muß man die Offenbarer vermuten, Wesen mit Willensnatur; die Weisheit ist das, was sich offenbart.
Der Mensch ist ein dazwischenstehendes Wesen. Auf der einen Seite, zum Beispiel hinsichtlich aller Sinneseindrücke, ist er ein empfangendes Wesen, hinsichtlich des Denkens aber ist er ein schaffendes Wesen. Nichts gibt ihm den Gedanken, wenn er ihn nicht zum Wahrnehmen hinzu schafft. So ist er also auf der einen Seite ein empfangendes, und auf der anderen Seite ein schaffendes Wesen. Das ist ein wichtiger Unterschied. Stellen wir uns vor, daß der Mensch imstande wäre, ebenso wie er heute Gedanken schafft, alles, was er wahrnimmt, Töne, Farben und so weiter zu schaffen. Heute ist er nur auf einem Gebiete, im Denken schaffend und braucht, um Sinneswahrnehmungen zu haben, schöpferische Wesen um sich herum. Auf dem Gebiete der Hervorbringung seiner eigenen Wesenheit ist er schaffend gewesen im Anfange dieser Entwickelung. Er hat sich damals selbst seinen Organismus geschaffen. Jetzt braucht er andere Wesen dazu. Der Mensch muß sich jetzt in einer leiblichen Gestalt inkarnieren, die von außen her bestimmt ist. Er neigt da noch mehr den elementaren Wesenheiten zu als auf dem Gebiete des Wahrnehmens und des Denkens.
Denken wir uns nun, daß der Mensch auch Töne, Farben und andere Sinneswahrnehmungen und seine eigene Wesenheit hervorbringen könnte. Dann haben wir den Menschen, der vor der lemurischen Rasse da war und den man den «reinen» Menschen nennt. Unrein wird der Mensch dadurch, daß er nicht sein ganzes Wesen selbst erzeugt, sondern anderes in seine Wesenheit hineingliedert. Dieser reine Mensch ist Adam Kadmon genannt worden. Wenn die Bibel anfangs vom Menschen spricht, spricht sie von diesem reinen Menschen. Dieser reine Mensch hatte noch nichts Kamisches in sich. Die Begierde kam erst, nachdem er anderes in sich eingegliedert hatte. So entstand die zweite Stufe der Menschheit, der kamarupische Mensch. Nur eine Unterabteilung desselben ist das höhere Tier. Ohne warmes Blut gibt es kein selbständiges Kamarupa in den Wesenheiten. Die nicht warmblütigen Tiere werden von anderen Wesenheiten dirigiert. Alle warmblütigen Tiere stammen vom Menschen ab.
Zuerst haben wir also den reinen Menschen, der tatsächlich bis zur lemurischen Zeit ein übersinnliches Dasein führte, und alles, was an ihm ist und lebt, aus sich selbst hervorbrachte.
Die heutigen kaltblütigen Tiere und die Pflanzen haben sich in einer anderen Weise entwickelt als die warmblütigen Tiere. Die heute da sind, sind Überbleibsel von mächtigen, riesengroßen, merkwürdigen Wesenheiten. Einige von diesen kann die Wissenschaft nachweisen. Das sind dekadente, herabgekommene Tiere, die von denen abstammen, die der reine Mensch benutzt hat, um sich in ihnen zu verkörpern, damit er einen Körper hatte für das Kamische. Zuerst hatte der reine Mensch noch keine Verkörperung gefunden auf der Erde. Er schwebte noch über den Verkörperungen. Von diesen großen, gewaltigen Wesenheiten (Tieren) benutzte der Mensch die vollkommensten, um sich in ihnen zu inkarnieren. Er hat sich diese Wesenheiten angegliedert, und dadurch war er imstande, eigenes Kama hineinzubringen. Einige dieser Wesenheiten entwickelten sich weiter und wurden nun zu den Atlantiern und zu der gegenwärtigen Menschheit. Doch nicht allen ist es gelungen sich anzupassen. Diese wurden die niederen Wirbeltiere; zum Beispiel Kängurubhs sind solche mißlungenen Bildungen auf dem Wege [zum Menschen], wie Töpferwaren, die man zurückläßt.
Nun wurden vom Menschen Versuche gemacht, das Kama in die Tiergestalten hineinzubringen. Das Kama ist eigentlich erst in der jetzigen menschlichen Gestalt darinnen, und zwar im Herzen, in der Blutwärme, im Blutkreislauf. Immer wieder wurden Versuche gemacht, und so ging es höher hinauf von Stufe zu Stufe. Mißlungene Versuche sehen wir zum Beispiel in den Faultieren, den Känguruhs, den Raubtieren, den Affen und Halbaffen. Diese alle blieben auf der Strecke zurück. Die warmblütigen Tiere sind mißlungene Versuche menschlicher Kamabildung. Alles was an Kama in ihnen ist, könnte der Mensch auch in sich haben; aber er hat es in ihnen abgeladen, denn diese Art Kama konnte er nicht brauchen.
Es gibt einen wichtigen okkulten Grundsatz: Jede Eigenschaft hat zwei entgegengesetzte Pole. So finden wir, wie positive und negative Elektrizität sich gegenseitig ergänzen, oder Wärme und Kälte, Tag und Nacht, Licht und Finsternis und so weiter. So hat auch jede Kamaeigenschaft zwei entgegengesetzte Seiten. Zum Beispiel hat der Mensch im Löwen die Wut aus sich herausgesetzt, die auf der anderen Seite, wenn er sie veredelt, die Kraft ist, die ihn zu seinem höheren Selbst hinaufführen kann. Die Leidenschaft soll nicht vernichtet, sondern geläutert werden. Der negative Pol muß hinaufgeführt werden zu einer höheren Stufe. Dieses Läutern der Leidenschaft, dieses Hinaufführen ihres negativen Poles nannte man bei den Pythagoreern die Katharsis. Zuerst hatte der Mensch in sich die Wut des Löwen und die List des Fuchses. Die Wut wurde von ihm dann sozusagen im Löwen fixiert und die List im Fuchse. So ist also das warmblütige Tierreich ein Bilderbogen von Kamaeigenschaften. Heute ist vielfach die Ansicht verbreitet, daß das «Tat tvam asi», das «Das bist du», als etwas unbestimmt Allgemeines aufzufassen sei, aber man muß sich etwas Bestimmtes darunter denken. Zum Beispiel beim Löwen muß der Mensch sich sagen: Das bist du! - So haben wir im warmblütigen Tierreich den kamarupischen Menschen vor uns ausgebreitet. Vorher bestand nur der reine Mensch: Adam Kadmon.
Der Naturphilosoph Oken, der in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts Professor in Jena war, hat diese Ideen alle erkannt und sie grotesk ausgesprochen, um die Menschen daraufzustoßen. Es findet sich bei ihm ein Beispiel, welches auf ein noch früheres Stadium des Menschen hinweist, ehe er das kaltblütige Tierreich abgegliedert hatte. Oken hat den Tintenfisch mit der menschlichen Zunge in Beziehung gebracht. Wenn man auf die Analogie der Zunge mit dem Tintenfisch eingeht, dann hat das eine okkulte Bedeutung. Nun haben wir auch Wesenheiten, die jetzt erst anfangen, gleichsam als Nebenprodukte erzeugt zu werden. Der Mensch hat die List des Fuchses herausgesetzt und behält den Gegenpol dazu zurück. In der List des Fuchses beginnt aber auch ein Keim von etwas anderem sich herauszubilden; zum Beispiel ähnlich wie der schwarze Schatten eines Gegenstandes durch das von außen hereintretende Licht einen Halbschatten hat. Wir gliederten in dem Fuchse die List aus unserem Inneren ab. Nun wird ihm von der Peripherie Geist zugeführt. Die Wesenheiten, die auf diese Weise von der Peripherie aus im Kamischen wirken, sind die Elementarwesen. Das was der Fuchs von uns bekommen hat, ist in ihm Tier; was von außen her an ihn angegliedert wird vom Geiste, ist Elementarwesen. Er ist auf der einen Seite durch den Geist der Menschheit, und auf der anderen Seite durch ein Elementarwesen entstanden.
Wir unterscheiden also: erstens Elementarwesen, zweitens den kamarupischen Menschen, drittens den reinen Menschen, viertens den Menschen, der in einer gewissen Beziehung den reinen Menschen überwunden hat, der das, was außen um ihn herum ist, aufgenommen hat und schöpferisch tätig ist. Er hat alles, was es im Erdendasein um ihn herum gibt, berührt und aufgenommen. Das bringt ihm die Pläne, die Vorschriften, die Gesetze, die das Leben schaffen. Einst war der Mensch vollkommen, und er wird es auch wieder werden. Aber es ist ein großer Unterschied zwischen dem, was er war und dem, was er sein wird. Was außen um ihn herum ist, wird später sein geistiges Eigentum geworden sein. Was auf der Erde von ihm erworben worden ist, wird später Fähigkeit des Menschen, schöpferisch tätig zu sein. Das ist dann sein innerstes Wesen geworden. Einer, der die ganzen irdischen Erfahrungen aufgenommen hat, so daß er von einem jeglichen Dinge weiß, wie es verwertet werden kann und so ein Schöpfer geworden ist, wird ein Bodhisattva genannt, das heißt ein Mensch, der Bodhi, die Buddhi der Erde, genugsam in sich aufgenommen hat. Dann ist er reif, aus den innersten Impulsen heraus zu wirken. Die Weisen der Erde sind noch nicht Bodhisattvas. Auch für einen Weisen gibt es immer noch Dinge, in denen er noch nicht vermag sich zurechtzufinden. Erst wenn man das gesamte Wissen der Erde in sich aufgenommen hat, um schaffen zu können, ist man ein Bodhisattva. Buddha, Zarathustra zum Beispiel, waren Bodhisattvas.
Wenn der Mensch sich noch weiter hinaufentwickelt, so daß er nicht nur ein Schöpfer auf der Erde ist, sondern Kräfte hat, die über die Erde hinausgehen, dann steht es ihm frei, diese höheren Kräfte zu gebrauchen oder weiter auf der Erde zu wirken. Er kann dann von fremden Welten etwas auf die Erde hereinbringen. Eine solche Zeit war da, bevor der Mensch sich zu inkarnieren begann, in dem letzten Drittel der lemurischen Zeit. Der Mensch hatte den physischen Körper, den Äther- und den Astralkörper ausgebildet. Diese Teile seines Wesens hatte er sich aus der früheren Erdenentwickelung mitgebracht. Die zwei nächsten Impulse, Kama und Manas, hätte er nicht auf der Erde finden können; sie liegen nicht in der Entwickelungskette der Erde. Der erste neue Anstoß (Kama) war nur als Kraft auf dem Mars zu finden. Kurz bevor der Mensch sich inkarnierte, kam er hinzu. Der zweite Anstoß (Manas) kam vom Merkur in der fünften Unterrasse der Atlantier, bei den Ursemiten. Diese neuen Antriebe mußten durch noch höhere Wesenheiten, durch die Nirmanakayas von anderen Planeten auf die Erde gebracht werden. Vom Mars brachten sie Kama, vom Merkur Manas hinzu. Die Nirmanakayas sind noch eine Stufe höher als die Bodhisattvas. Diese können die fortdauernde Entwickelung regeln; etwas Fremdes aber können sie nicht hineinbringen, das können nur die Nirmanakayas. Noch um eine Stufe höher als die Nirmanakayas stehen diejenigen Wesenheiten, welche man Pitris nennt. Pitris = Väter. Denn die Nirmanakayas können wohl etwas Fremdes in die Entwickelung hineinbringen, aber sie können nicht sich selbst hinopfern, sich hinopfern als Substanz, so daß sie auf dem nächsten Planeten einen neuen Zyklus hervorbringen können. Das können die Pitris, die Wesenheiten, die sich auf dem Monde ausgebildet hatten und nun herübergekommen waren; sie sind der Anstoß zur Erdenentwickelung geworden. Wenn der Mensch durch alles hindurchgegangen ist, dann ist er imstande, ein Pitri zu werden. Die nächste, noch höhere Stufe, die man nur noch nennen kann, sind die eigentlichen Götter.
So haben wir also sieben Stufen von Wesenheiten: Erstens die Götter, zweitens Pitris, drittens Nirmanakayas, viertens Bodhisattvas, fünftens reine Menschen, sechstens Menschen, siebentens Elementarwesen. Das ist die Reihenfolge, von der Helena Petrowna Blavatsky spricht.
Hier können wir noch die Frage anschließen, was für ein Organ es ist, das den Menschen kamarupisch gemacht hat. Es ist das Herz mit den Adern und dem Blut, das durch den Körper pulsiert. Das Herz hat einen physischen Teil, einen ätherischen Teil - Aristoteles spricht von diesem, da man früher nur den Äthermenschen für wichtig hielt - und einen astralen Teil. Das ätherische Herz steht in Verbindung mit der zweiblätterigen Lotusblüte. Von den physischen Organen haben nicht alle auch astrale Teile, so ist zum Beispiel die Galle nur physisch und ätherisch, das Astrale fehlt.
VI
Today we want to demonstrate the sequence of stages of the beings to which human beings belong. Human beings, as they are now, are beings that have come into being, that were not always as they are now. They not only have other stages before and after them, but also beside them, just as children today have old people beside them as another stage of development. Today we want to demonstrate seven stages of beings. To do this, we must first clarify the difference between receptive and creative beings.
With our eyes, for example, we perceive a color, red or green. In this respect, we are receptive beings. However, the color must first be produced so that we can perceive it; we are therefore faced with a being that produces the color, for example, red. This allows us to recognize the sequence of stages of the beings. If we summarize everything that comes before our senses, the soul must be there so that it can be received; but the opposite must also be there so that it can be brought before us. There are beings that can reveal. These have a more divine or devic character. Beings that are more suited to receiving have a more elemental character. Divine beings are of a revealing nature. Elemental beings are of a receiving nature.
Here we have, in this realm, the creative wisdom that creates outside, and the wisdom that is received by the human soul. Wisdom is in the light, and it reveals itself in all sensory perceptions. Behind what is revealed, one must assume the revelators, beings with a will nature; wisdom is what is revealed.
Human beings are beings who stand in between. On the one hand, for example with regard to all sensory impressions, they are receptive beings, but with regard to thinking, they are creative beings. Nothing gives them thoughts unless they add them to their perceptions. So, on the one hand, they are receptive beings, and on the other, they are creative beings. This is an important difference. Let us imagine that human beings were able to create everything they perceive, sounds, colors, and so on, in the same way that they create thoughts today. Today, they are only creative in one area, in thinking, and need creative beings around them in order to have sensory perceptions. At the beginning of this development, humans were creative in the realm of producing their own being. At that time, they created their own organism. Now they need other beings to do this. Humans now have to incarnate in a physical form that is determined from outside. In this respect, they are even more inclined toward elemental beings than in the realm of perception and thinking.
Let us now imagine that human beings could also produce sounds, colors, and other sensory perceptions, as well as their own essence. Then we have the human being who existed before the Lemurian race and who is called the “pure” human being. Human beings become impure because they do not create their entire being themselves, but incorporate other things into their essence. This pure human being has been called Adam Kadmon. When the Bible speaks of humans at the beginning, it speaks of this pure human being. This pure human being had nothing kamic in him yet. Desire only came after he had incorporated other things into himself. This is how the second stage of humanity, the kamarupic human being, came into being. Only a subdivision of this is the higher animal. Without warm blood, there is no independent kamarupa in beings. Animals that are not warm-blooded are directed by other entities. All warm-blooded animals are descended from humans.
So first we have the pure human being, who actually led a supersensible existence until the Lemurian period and produced everything that is and lives in him from himself.
Today's cold-blooded animals and plants have developed in a different way than warm-blooded animals. Those that exist today are remnants of powerful, gigantic, strange beings. Science can prove the existence of some of these. They are decadent, degenerate animals descended from those that pure humans used to incarnate themselves in, so that they had a body for the Kamic. At first, pure humans had not yet found incarnation on Earth. They still hovered above incarnations. Of these large, powerful beings (animals), humans used the most perfect ones to incarnate themselves in them. They affiliated themselves with these beings, and through this they were able to bring in their own kama. Some of these beings developed further and became the Atlanteans and the present-day human race. But not all of them succeeded in adapting. These became the lower vertebrates; for example, kangaroos are such failed formations on the way [to becoming human], like pottery that is left behind.
Now attempts were made by humans to bring the kama into the animal forms. Kama is actually only present in the current human form, namely in the heart, in the warmth of the blood, in the blood circulation. Attempts were made again and again, and so it went higher and higher from stage to stage. We see failed attempts, for example, in sloths, kangaroos, predators, monkeys, and prosimians. All of these fell by the wayside. Warm-blooded animals are failed attempts at human kama formation. Everything that is kama in them could also be in humans, but humans have dumped it in them because they could not use this type of kama.
There is an important occult principle: every quality has two opposite poles. Thus we find how positive and negative electricity complement each other, or heat and cold, day and night, light and darkness, and so on. In the same way, every kama characteristic has two opposite sides. For example, humans have projected their anger onto the lion, which, on the other hand, when refined, is the force that can lead them to their higher self. Passion should not be destroyed, but purified. The negative pole must be raised to a higher level. This purification of passion, this raising of its negative pole, was called catharsis by the Pythagoreans. At first, man had within him the anger of the lion and the cunning of the fox. The rage was then fixed in the lion, so to speak, and the cunning in the fox. Thus, the warm-blooded animal kingdom is a picture book of kama qualities. Today, the view is widely held that “Tat tvam asi,” “That is you,” should be understood as something vague and general, but one must think of something specific. For example, in the case of the lion, man must say to himself: That is you! Thus, in the warm-blooded animal kingdom, we have the Kama-like human being spread out before us. Before that, there was only the pure human being: Adam Kadmon.
The natural philosopher Oken, who was a professor in Jena in the first half of the 19th century, recognized all these ideas and expressed them in a grotesque way in order to provoke people. He gives an example that points to an even earlier stage of human development, before humans had separated from the cold-blooded animal kingdom. Oken related the octopus to the human tongue. If one considers the analogy between the tongue and the octopus, it has an occult meaning. Now we also have beings that are only just beginning to be created, as it were, as by-products. Humans have emphasized the cunning of the fox and retained its opposite pole. But in the cunning of the fox, the seed of something else also begins to form; for example, similar to how the black shadow of an object has a penumbra due to the light entering from outside. We separated the cunning from our inner being into the fox. Now spirit is brought to it from the periphery. The beings that work in this way from the periphery in the kamic realm are the elemental beings. What the fox has received from us is animal in him; what is attached to him from outside by the spirit is elemental being. He has come into being on the one hand through the spirit of humanity and on the other hand through an elemental being.
We therefore distinguish between: first, elemental beings; second, the kamic human being; third, the pure human being; fourth, the human being who, in a certain sense, has overcome the pure human being, who has absorbed what is around him and is creatively active. He has touched and absorbed everything that exists around him in earthly existence. This brings him the plans, the rules, the laws that create life. Man was once perfect, and he will be so again. But there is a great difference between what he was and what he will be. What is around him externally will later become his spiritual property. What has been acquired by him on earth will later become man's ability to be creatively active. This then becomes his innermost being. One who has absorbed all earthly experiences, so that he knows how every thing can be used and has thus become a creator, is called a Bodhisattva, that is, a human being who has sufficiently absorbed Bodhi, the Buddhi of the earth, within himself. Then he is ready to act from his innermost impulses. The sages of the earth are not yet bodhisattvas. Even for a sage, there are still things in which he cannot yet find his way. Only when one has absorbed all the knowledge of the earth in order to be able to create is one a bodhisattva. Buddha and Zarathustra, for example, were bodhisattvas.
When human beings develop further, so that they are not only creators on Earth but also have powers that extend beyond Earth, they are free to use these higher powers or to continue to work on Earth. They can then bring something from other worlds to Earth. Such a time existed before human beings began to incarnate, in the last third of the Lemurian epoch. Human beings had developed their physical, etheric, and astral bodies. They had brought these parts of their being with them from earlier Earth development. They could not have found the next two impulses, Kama and Manas, on Earth; they do not lie in the chain of Earth's development. The first new impulse (Kama) could only be found as a force on Mars. Shortly before humans incarnated, it was added. The second impulse (Manas) came from Mercury in the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, among the Ur-Semites. These new impulses had to be brought to Earth by even higher beings, by the Nirmanakayas from other planets. They brought Kama from Mars and Manas from Mercury. The Nirmanakayas are one step higher than the Bodhisattvas. They can regulate ongoing development, but they cannot introduce anything foreign; only the Nirmanakayas can do that. One step higher than the Nirmanakayas are the beings called Pitris. Pitris = fathers. For the Nirmanakayas can indeed bring something foreign into development, but they cannot sacrifice themselves, sacrifice themselves as substance, so that they can bring forth a new cycle on the next planet. The Pitris, the beings who had developed on the moon and had now come over, can do this; they have become the impetus for the development of the earth. When human beings have gone through everything, they are able to become Pitris. The next, even higher level, which can only be called the actual gods, is the next level.
So we have seven stages of beings: first, the gods; second, Pitris; third, Nirmanakayas; fourth, Bodhisattvas; fifth, pure humans; sixth, humans; seventh, elemental beings. This is the order Helena Petrovna Blavatsky speaks of.
Here we can add the question of what kind of organ it is that has made humans kamarupic. It is the heart with its veins and the blood that pulses through the body. The heart has a physical part, an etheric part — Aristotle speaks of this, since in the past only the etheric human was considered important — and an astral part. The etheric heart is connected to the two-petaled lotus flower. Not all physical organs have astral parts; for example, the gallbladder is only physical and etheric, lacking the astral part.