The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Planetary Development: Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] In the middle of the Lemurian epoch, the house for human beings was built to the point where they were capable of thinking. The dhyanic beings had reached that degree of perfection through which they could endow the physical body with the power of thought. As a result of the physical body now being endowed with the power of thought, the previously unified sexuality of human beings divided into two sexes. Previously, a being was able to produce offspring without the influence of a second being. The power of physical productivity was therefore twice as great in these beings as it is now in individual human beings. So in the middle of the Lemurian epoch, the power of productivity in human beings was divided into two parts, and the second half of this power was used for the development of the faculty of thinking.

[ 2 ] Until then, humans had continuously developed at the expense of other kingdoms, which were separated from them. Now they had to divide themselves into two halves: the lower productive power and the higher productive power (the power of thought); the latter was developed at the expense of the former. Our physical power of understanding is therefore the transformed regenerative power of earlier times.

[ 3 ] Up to this point, there were no warm-blooded beings on Earth, i.e., beings with blood developed from within by Kama fire. All beings, including humans, were cold-blooded at that time. All cold-blooded beings of today are the stunted descendants of the cold-blooded beings of that time. Everything that exists today as warm-blooded creatures was still united with humans at that time and only gradually split off.

[ 4 ] Gradually, humans left behind the inferior in order to evolve. Reptiles, birds, and mammals split off first, with apes splitting off quite late. Warm-blooded animals are also stages that have been left behind, which humans have discarded just as they did the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the cold-blooded animal kingdom. The fact that no warm-blooded animals existed until then actually means that we have gained one more kingdom. In esotericism, we also count: the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, cold-blooded animals, and warm-blooded animals.

[ 5 ] The separation of warm-blooded animals only occurred during the Lemurian period when Kama entered the body and took over the lower part of the halved productivity. Kama, acting from within, causes what is known as warmth in warm-blooded beings.

[ 6 ] The dhyanic beings were now able to create a human form in which half of the productive power was converted into intellectual power. Now the Moon Pitris gradually took possession of the created human bodies.

[ 7 ] Dhyanic beings can also lag behind in their development. Thus, some Dhyanis of the same class as the creators of human beings on the moon had lagged behind in their development. They had not managed to play a creative part in the creation of the two sexes. But they had attained the ability to wisely develop and shape the kama body. They were able to bring the kama in humans to its highest point. These beings were still engaged in this during the Lemurian epoch; that was their intention. However, since the kama body was not yet sexually formed on the moon, they could not participate in the development of the kama in the sexual sphere.

[ 8 ] While the Dhyanis, who were more advanced than them, had developed the human body to such an extent that the spirit could enter the two different-sexed bodies, these backward beings only aspired to use their highest wisdom to develop a humanity that would bring to fruition what had been strived for on the Moon, but without sexuality. They found wisdom in humans as something akin to their own nature. They now attacked humans and wanted to create a form for them that excluded all lower kamic elements; they wanted to bring them to perfection immediately, without passing through sexuality. They wanted to shape them into wise beings, they wanted to lead them further and disregard what they had to go through in their physical nature. These are the beings who refused to participate in creation in the physical nature.

[ 9 ] If human beings had developed only according to the intentions of the first Dhyanis, the lower kamic nature would not have developed and the Dhyanis would have guided them through their thoughts. Who would then have actually thought in human beings? What had entered into them were God's thoughts. Human beings would always have been under God's guidance; God would have thought in them, but they would never have thought for themselves. Then humans would have been true children of God, but they would never have been able to become like God. As thinking automatons, they would never have been able to grasp the inner spark of wisdom as their own; it would always have remained a foreign light.

[ 10 ] Then these backward beings, who were at just the right level, came to intervene and help. They had developed the wise Kama body on the moon and understood how to permeate Kama with wisdom. They were the beings to whom humans owe their freedom. In order for the spark of the spirit to be their own, humans had to be coupled with Kama. Through this, they learned to love the light of the other dhyanic beings. In esotericism, they are called the great ascetics, the Kumaras. For in the beginning, they refused to create; they did not understand dual sexuality; they became rebellious. They were guides for humans, where Kama is led up to wisdom.

[ 11 ] The Elohim, namely Yahweh-Elohim, created man, but they did not want him to become “like us.” Now, after the intervention of the backward Dhyanis, it was at least necessary to prevent humans from becoming spiritualized to the exclusion of all that is base. Lucifer's original intention was to eliminate sexuality and allow humans to become completely absorbed in the spiritual. Jehovah, on the other hand, tends to emphasize physical life. He does not want humans to become spiritual too early, but rather to go through the phases of earthly development. Together, they bring about free humans.

[ 12 ] The indignation of the lower Dhyanis, that is the work of Lucifer, the intervention of the beings who liberate human beings, is the so-called mystery of Lucifer. In all esoteric schools, Lucifer has been revered in the same way as the other Dhyanic beings. Whenever there was an endeavor to lead the way up to the spirit in full clarity of knowledge, Lucifer was invoked. The understanding of the mystery of Lucifer still existed in the first Christian mystery schools and was written down in the early days of Christianity. This writing is carefully guarded by the Catholic Church. It has good reasons for doing so, because it has branded Lucifer as the enemy of humanity, while in truth he turned the automatic human being into a free human being. The writings are kept in the Vatican, and the Count of St. Germain has a copy of the original.

[ 13 ] Now we have seen the interaction of the heavenly beings (Dhyanis), the earthly beings (the earthly-physical human being and the lunar-soul of the Pitris), and the Luciferic beings in the Lemurian period. Let us now consider a special line of development in human beings. Every cycle is first descending and then ascending: evolution — involution. This is also the case with the development of our senses. We have not always had the same senses. In the polar epoch, human beings were enveloped in a thin, almost shadowy matter. They had been constructed in the sense of the Pitris, etherically. These etheric human beings, who actually looked oval like an egg, moved in a completely etheric element. Today's senses would have been useless at that time. One sense was sufficient to orient oneself within the etheric matter, and that was the sense of hearing. They had only this one sense to perceive the movement of the etheric matter, just as later, in the sixth root race, humans will hear the “trumpets” (Revelation of John), that is, the tones of the spheres.

[ 14 ] As matter condensed, what must be described as differences in heat formed within it. Uniformly moving air is sound. The movements were no longer uniform, so denser and warmer areas arose. The Hyperboreans were formed from air matter. They moved in a kind of air matter. They were able to distinguish the degrees of temperature by developing a sense of feeling. As the earth continued to condense, the bodies first became firmer and then finally incandescent. This could appear externally as a flame. The sense of sight developed in such a way that the head's heat organ, which protruded from the top of the head like a lantern, slowly transformed into a visual organ. This is the later pineal gland, which is now atrophied, but was once glowing and protruding: the one eye of the Cyclops. As the earth continued to condense, this eye began to recede and instead of one eye, two eyes developed, which, however, only fully formed in the Atlantean period.

[ 15 ] Until the third sub-race of the Atlantean epoch, there were still people who had developed their one eye (the eye of the Cyclops) and used it for clairvoyance. After that, a new ability emerged, that of perceiving condensed matter with a sense: through the sense of taste (tongue). The matter had to be concentrated so strongly that it became like salt. The sense of smell developed last, and it will only attain its true significance in the following cycles.

[ 16 ] Now the development continues, and we are called upon to develop two new senses in this cycle. We have already begun to actively start the cycle where we had previously begun it passively. Now what was previously passive is becoming active in us. The approach to this originated with the Atlanteans. Previously, humans had no language; this first developed among the Atlanteans. Through language, humans express what they have heard with their ears. Evolution was previously involution. Speaking is the opposite of hearing. Speaking must continue to develop. It will come to its significance, to become a meaning, when mystical development has ennobled humans from within to such an extent that the spiritual can flow directly into them. When the spiritual unites with the larynx, humans will be able to speak in a higher sense (before the Masters).

[ 17 ] For the first time, a human Manu, who will be a “Master” as a human being, will attain his training at the end of the fifth root race. In the sixth root race, he will be a brother to humanity. Those who have advanced their mystical development of the astral so far that they are able to recognize the Master have achieved this through the training of this sense. “Before the Masters can speak, the voice must unlearn to wound.” But within our cycle, a seventh sense must also be developed. In the same way that the sense of hearing comes out actively in language that no longer wounds, the sense of feeling will undergo a reversal. Human beings will no longer only understand what comes from outside as feeling, but will also understand how to direct it outward. They will be able to freely unfold their hearts outwardly and now be able to surround other people with their deepest feelings. What today lies in the heart as the spiritual soul will flow outward. They will lay their souls openly at the feet of others. As long as people do not consciously strive to face their fellow human beings and the whole world openly, they will not be able to develop this sense: “And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of their hearts must wet their feet.” The astral body organizes these senses when one lives in accordance with these two sayings.