The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture VII

[ 1 ] In The Secret Doctrine, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky referred to Jehovah as a moon god. There is a deeper reason for this. To understand it, we must understand the further development of human beings. As humans are now, their higher powers are mixed up. Their higher development consists in the higher self being separated from the lower powers and organs.

[ 2 ] The brain is divided into three real parts: a thinking brain, a feeling brain, and a willing brain. These three parts will later be directed by humans from the outside, like the three parts of an anthill. However, the parts from which the higher self is extracted do not remain as they are today, but descend one level further. This is why some people become morally worse when they develop one-sidedly intellectually. There is less danger of this in Western intellectual culture, because Western science does not yet force the higher spiritual out of the lower body. With theosophy, on the other hand, the human being actually absorbs a wisdom through which the ego is partially torn out of its familiar organic environment. If a person who absorbs theosophical teachings was previously only a decent person because of the conventional environment surrounding them, the worse person, who had remained hidden until then, can actually come out. Such phenomena can be observed. Often, the bad nature comes out precisely because one is engaged in spiritual matters without at the same time strengthening one's moral character. This fact brings with it a certain tragedy. The Theosophical Society has indeed suffered in this regard. Some scholars who had been quite capable people in the field of Western knowledge suffered from joining the Theosophical Society; their lower nature came out without being controlled by their higher nature.

[ 3 ] The same law can also be found on a larger scale. The beings we encounter on the ancient moon did not yet have their thinking power in a physical brain. The thinking power of the moon nirmanakayas, bodhisattvas, pitris, and pure humans did not yet work in a physical brain, but in the etheric mass around them. On the ancient moon, the environment was not just air, but ether filled with wisdom. On the old moon, thoughts were not in individual beings, but swirled around in the ether. In occultism, the moon is therefore also called the cosmos of wisdom. Heat ether and other forms of ether surrounded the moon. Within them lived intellect and reason, as they now live in the human brain. However, this state was subject to development. At the beginning of the moon's development, wisdom still manifested itself in beautiful forms. The beings, who had only the lower parts of the human being, the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, were directed by the streams of wisdom. As development progressed, the three lower bodies descended deeper. When the Moon's development came to an end, the beings who were wise but did not have wisdom in a brain had progressed so far that they could leave these lower bodies completely. These beings, who had now become Pitris and no longer needed to enter such physical, etheric, and astral bodies, were the hosts of Elohim with different degrees. The lowest rank of these Elohim is the Jehovah level. So Jehovah is a real lunar deity who went through physical development on the moon. However, he was never able to process the physical environment on the moon through a brain. Only his physical, etheric, and astral bodies had processed the physical environment. But he had processed it as images. Thought hovered above it. The name Jehovah does not refer to a single being, but to a rank in the hierarchy. Many beings can occupy or move into the Jehovah rank. Eliphas Levi repeatedly emphasized that terms such as Jehovah, Archangeloi, Angeloi, and so on refer to ranks.

[ 4 ] The first humans to be taught on Earth received this teaching from Jehovah in images. Therefore, Genesis is a collection of great images; the images that Jehovah had experienced on the Moon.

[ 5 ] While on the Moon only the lower entity of the human being, the physical, etheric, and astral bodies, was formed, the higher Trinity was nurtured and cared for. This had also matured after Atma was implanted on the old Saturn, Buddhi on the old Sun, and Manas on the old Moon. These could then develop further on Earth. What came over from the old Moon to the Earth in terms of the physical, etheric, and astral bodies are the grotesque animals in which the Atma-Buddhi-Manas was gradually able to envelop itself. The Moon Pitris had left behind the worse part, but had nurtured and cared for Atma, Buddhi, and Manas in an objective way. Through their care, they succeeded in bringing about the emergence of a thinker on Earth. When one looks at the outer creatures on the Moon, these are the shells that surrounded human beings, not the human beings themselves. The shells were needed because what was necessary had come out of them... (gap in the text). Now the remaining matter could clump together to form the brain. The material for the brain was there, but it could only condense after the Pitris had left.

[ 6 ] The process before the Lemurian period is a preparatory one. The human body is developed so that the Atma-Buddhi-Manas can sink into it. This has surrounded itself with Kamamasse. Let us now imagine a slimy, gelatinous entity that wrests itself out of what has come from the moon. This is a physical basis. In addition, there is Atma-Buddhi-Manas and an astral body that they have organized around themselves. These principles now work on the gelatinous mass from the outside until they can take possession of it from within. The spiritual finally penetrates the physical. Now two different entities have actually united. The moment the brain is formed, they merge into each other. This is how birth and death came into earthly development. In the past, humans built their own physical bodies; later, this will be the case again. But because two beings have united that now fit together almost perfectly, we have birth and death, and every period between birth and death is a continuous attempt to better align these two different beings; a back-and-forth oscillation until a rhythmic state is finally achieved.

[ 7 ] This will continue until the middle of the sixth root race (main epoch), until this rhythmic state is reached and one being is completely adapted to the other. And karma is nothing other than the measure of the balance that the human being has already achieved. In each incarnation, one reaches a certain degree of adaptation. After each incarnation, one must ascend again to Devachan in order to see what still needs to be done. Only when balance has been achieved is karma overcome and can the human being take in something new, true wisdom, Buddhi, which must be cherished and nurtured until then.

[ 8 ] Future development must be prepared. What humans already express now in preparation for future humans is the word, language. What humans speak remains in the Akashic Records. It is the first foundation for future humans. Language is half of the former reproductive capacity. Through language, humans reproduce spiritually. In men, this is connected with the change in voice. Half of sexuality has been transferred to language. The voice is the later reproductive organ. In ancient Hebrew, the same word is used for sexuality and language. Now humans think, and the thought goes out through the larynx. The next stage is that feeling goes outward, warmth. Then the word will be the expression of inner body warmth. This can happen when the mucous body (the pituitary gland) in the brain is developed. The next stage occurs when the pineal gland (epiphysis) is developed. Then not only will the warmed word go outward, but the word will remain, will be shaped by the will that then lives in it. When one then speaks the word, it becomes a real being.

[ 9 ] This is related to: “I think, I feel, I am” (will). The word in this sense is “the Word” that transforms from thought into feeling, then into will. This is a threefold process: first, the word is “consciousness” (in thought), then ‘life’ (the warmed word), and finally “form,” the word shaped by the will. The latter is the word that has become objective. So here too, consciousness, life, and form follow one another. Everything that is form today has come into being through such a process in the past. The physical body, the form, is the most mature body; less mature are the etheric body, life, and the astral body, consciousness.