The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture XVIII

[ 1 ] If we want to take a closer look at how karma comes about, we have to go back a little in the development of humanity. If we go back a few thousand years in Europe itself, we find Europe covered in ice. The glaciers of the Alps stretched far down into the North German Plain at that time. The areas where we now live were cold and harsh at that time. They were inhabited by a race of people who still used very simple and primitive tools. If we go back about a million years, we find a tropical climate on the same soil, such as can only be found today in the hottest regions of Africa; in some parts there were mighty primeval forests, inhabited by parrots, monkeys, especially gibbons, and elephants. But if we were to roam these forests, we would hardly encounter anything resembling modern humans, nor those of later periods a few thousand years ago. From certain layers of earth that were formed between those two eras, natural science can prove the existence of a human being whose frontal lobe was not yet as developed as it is today and whose forehead was set far back. Only the rear part of the brain was developed. This takes us back to a time when humans did not yet know fire and made weapons by grinding stones. Natural scientists like to compare this state of human beings with the developmental state of savages or that of clumsy children. Remains of such humans have been found in Neanderthal and Croatia. They have ape-like skulls, and the finds in Croatia show that they were roasted before they died, meaning that cannibals lived there at that time.

[ 2 ] Now the materialistic thinker says to himself: We trace humans back to the times when they were still undeveloped and clumsy, and assume that humans have developed from this childlike stage of existence to the current cultural stage of humanity, and that these primitive humans evolved from human-like animals. So he simply makes a leap in this theory of development from primitive man to human-like animals. The natural scientist assumes that the more perfect has always developed from the imperfect. But this is not always the case. If we trace the individual human being back to childhood, for example, there is nothing more imperfect, because the child descends from its father and mother. This means that we arrive at a primitive state that again comes from a higher state. This is important because it is related to the fact that the child already has the predisposition for a later degree of perfection at birth, while the animal remains at the lower stage.

[ 3 ] When the natural scientist has gone back to the stage when humans did not yet have a forebrain or a mind, he should say to himself: I must assume that the origin of humans is to be found elsewhere.

[ 4 ] Just as a child descends from a pair of parents, so all those primitive humans descended from other humans who had already attained a certain degree of perfection. We call these humans the Atlanteans. They lived on land that is now covered by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlanteans had even less frontal lobe and an even more receding forehead. But they had something else that later humans did not have. They had a much stronger, more powerful etheric body. The etheric body of the Atlanteans had not yet formed certain connections with the brain; these developed later. Thus, a powerful etheric head had developed above the physical head, which was relatively small and embedded in a powerful etheric head. The functions that humans now perform with the help of the forebrain were performed by the Atlanteans with the help of organs in the etheric body. This enabled them to communicate with beings to whom we now have no access, precisely because humans have developed the forebrain. The Atlanteans had a visible kind of fiery, colorful formation that flowed out from the opening of the physical head to the etheric head. It was accessible to a multitude of psychic influences. Such a head, which thinks as an etheric head, has power over the etheric, while a head that thinks in the physical brain has power only over the physical, over the joining together of purely mechanical things. It can make physical tools. In contrast, a person who still thinks in the ether can make a seed blossom so that it really grows.

[ 5 ] Atlantic culture was really still connected with the growth of the natural, vegetative world, over which modern man has lost power. For example, the Atlanteans did not use steam power to move their vehicles, but rather the seed power of plants, with which they propelled their vehicles forward. It was only in the last third of the Atlantean period, from the time of the ancient Semites until the time when Atlantis was covered by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, that the etheric forehead developed the frontal lobe. As a result, humans lost the power to influence plant growth and gained the ability of the physical brain, the intellect. They now had to start afresh with many things. They had to begin learning mechanical tasks. They were still like children, clumsy and awkward, whereas they had previously achieved great skill in the development of the vegetative. Humans must pass through intelligence and then regain what they were once able to do. Higher spiritual powers had an influence on the unfree will at that time; through the open etheric head, they worked through their intellect.

[ 6 ] Going back even further, we come to the Lemurian period. Here we see a stage of human development in which the union of the maternal and paternal principles actually takes place. This etheric head naturally has its branches in the astral body, in what surrounds the human being as an aura... (Gap in the text.) If one had managed to lift the head with the astral body out of such a human being, something special would have happened. The human being would have lost the ability to stand upright and would have collapsed. It was precisely the opposite process that was carried out with human beings at that time, and as a result they gradually straightened up.

[ 7 ] In the Lemurian period, however, human beings were still at a stage where they did not yet possess what we assumed could be drawn out of them. In an earlier period, they did not yet have this etheric head with the astral body. These were not yet there at that time. Human beings wandering around on earth at that time were truly collapsed beings. The two working organs, the hands, were bent backwards at that time and also formed organs of movement, so that humans walked on four legs. Imagine two humans of today, man and woman intertwined, imagine the upper half of the body gone and only the lower half remaining: humans were actually male-female. Humans at that time also had an astral and an etheric body, but not the ones they had later. It was a different astral body, one that had reached its highest perfection on the Moon. There on the Moon, in connection with the etheric body, the astral body had acquired the ability to form a physical body, which at that time had a crab-like shape. Humans could stand on one pair of legs and perform truly springy movements.

[ 8 ] This astral body with the etheric body was very different at that time. It had a shape that was not quite egg-shaped, but more bell-shaped. It arched over the human being, who walked on all fours. The etheric body supplied all the life functions of this Lemurian human being. At that time, humans had a dull, twilight consciousness in their astral body, similar to how we dream today. But their consciousness was not like the reminiscences in our dreams today; rather, they dreamed of realities. When another, unsympathetic human being approached him, a sensation of light arose within him, indicating the unsympathetic nature of the other.

[ 9 ] Even on the Moon, humans had already had a slight ability to use their two front limbs as grasping organs, so that now a time of upright walking began. The other living companions of humans during the Lemurian period were reptilian animals of grotesque forms that left no traces behind. Ichthyosaurs and so forth are descendants of those animals. In fact, at that time the earth was populated by beings that had a reptilian character; even human bodies had a reptilian character at that time. As the then reptilian human being straightened up, a head formation that was completely open at the front became visible, from which a fiery cloud poured forth. This gave rise to the story of the lindworm, the dragon. This is the grotesque formation that was man himself at that time, a reptilian creature. The guardian of the threshold, the lower nature of man, usually appears in such a form. It is the lower nature with the open head formation. At that time, a marriage took place on earth between these formations and the other being described above. The astral body with the head shape connected with the lindworm-like body with the fiery opening. It was the fertilization of the maternal earth with the paternal spirit.

[ 10 ] Thus, fertilization with the manasic forces took place. The lower astral body merged with the higher astral body. A large piece of that astral body fell off. One part formed the lower parts of the human astral body, and the other, newly added astral body connected with the head, joined with the upper parts of the human being. What was peeled off at that time emerged from this astral body, which was connected with the lindworm formation, and could no longer develop further on Earth. This formed, as a conglomerate, the astral sphere of the moon, the so-called eighth sphere. The moon actually harbors astral beings that came into being because human beings shed something.

[ 11 ] This union of the fatherly spirit with the motherly matter was described in Egypt as the union of Osiris and Isis. What came into being there was Horus. The fusion of the worm-like form with the etheric head, with the astral body of the human being who had newly arrived, and the head form, led to the conception of the sphinx form. The sphinx is the representation of this idea in sculpture.

[ 12 ] There were seven types or classes of such beings, all slightly different from each other, ranging from the most beautiful, almost noble human forms to the most grotesque forms. All seven types of human beings had to be fertilized. One must imagine the descent of the “sons of Manas” in this figurative way. Only then can one understand how the astral body of the human being came into being. It is composed of two different parts.

[ 13 ] If one considers human development, one will find that one part of the astral body is constantly striving to overcome the other half, the lower nature, and vice versa. If human beings today consist of an astral body, an etheric body, and a physical body, then only the physical body is actually a product that is complete as it is. The other two bodies are engaged in a constant struggle. The etheric body also has two parts that seek to merge into one another.

[ 14 ] When a person dies, they surrender their entire physical body to the forces of the earth, but their etheric body initially splits into two parts. One part is that which originates from the higher formation, and this is what the person takes with them. The rest of the etheric body, however, falls away, because the person has no control over it; it has been given to them from outside. He can only exercise control over it once he has become a secret disciple. In ordinary human beings, this part of the etheric body is therefore surrendered to the etheric forces of the universe.

[ 15 ] What remains attached to the human being from the astral body they received from the moon forces them to spend a period of time in Kamaloka until they have freed themselves from this part of the astral body for their individual life. Then they still have the part of the astral body that has already found balance; with this, they make their way through Devachan and back to physical life. That is why bell-like formations can be seen racing around in astral space at tremendous speed. These are the human souls that want to reincarnate. When such a human bell flashes through astral space here and a human embryo in South America has a karmic connection to it, this human bell must already be directly there. These returning souls race through astral space. These bell-like formations are reminiscent of those that appeared in the Lemurian period, except that they have already found their balance with the higher astral body.

[ 16 ] We know that human beings develop by working on the three other bodies from the ego. The ego is nothing other than what had a fertilizing effect at that time: the upper part of the aura with the etheric head. The members that human beings have developed are the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body.

Upper etheric body or mental body
Astral body as Buddhi
Astral body
Lower etheric body
Physical body.

[ 17 ] The physical body arose through a transformation and refinement of the lindworm-like body that we encounter in the Lemurian period. It was male-female. In the present human being there is also a male-female human being. In the man, the basis of the upper limbs is female, in the woman the basis of the upper etheric body is of male formation. In fact, human beings are also male-female in their physical nature.

[ 18 ] The etheric body consists of two parts: the part of human nature that came over from the moon at that time, and its opposite pole. At first they were not connected to each other, but later they approached each other and connected. One is the animal pole, the other is the spiritual pole. The animal pole is called the etheric body, the spiritual pole is called the mental body. The mental body is materially etheric.

[ 19 ] In between is the astral body, which also arose from a connection between two. It is basically also a double structure. One must distinguish between a lower and a higher nature within it. The higher nature is originally connected to the mental body. That part of the astral body which is located in the mental body, which has come in from above, is the other pole of the lower astral body. One characteristic of the lower astral body is that it has desires. The upper part, on the other hand, has devotion, love, the giving virtue. This part of the astral body is called Buddhi. This description of the human being is seen in cosmic illumination. When the human being himself works into his sheaths, it is different. One represents how the human being is cosmically constructed, the other how he himself works into it.

[ 20 ] So Buddhi is the refined astral, the mental is the refined etheric, and the physical has its counterpart in the Atma.