The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture XIX

[ 1 ] Yesterday we saw how human beings are connected in a certain way to the astral powers. When they die, they first enter the astral world. But even now they remain in constant connection with the astral plane. In fact, beings are constantly visible on the astral plane that would not be there if there were no humans. They come to the astral plane through humans, and in a certain sense even more through animals. They are not like the other beings of the astral plane. There on the astral plane, what is initially only perceptible to humans becomes visible. Desire, suffering, and instincts are as real there as external objects, such as a chair or a table, are on the physical plane. This is so real there that a being that appears to us as desire initially affects our feelings when its astral substance is still very thin.

[ 2 ] What occurs on the astral plane is usually present there as a mirror image in comparison to the physical plane; for example, the number 563 is 365 there. A feeling of hatred also appears there as if it came from the person to whom it was sent. This fact applies to all things on the astral plane. One can perceive the soul, which shines in from the astral plane onto the physical plane, here with the opposite characteristics. When soul feelings penetrate from the astral plane, for example, while they are warmth there, they penetrate here as a mirror image of the astral plane with a peculiar feeling of coldness. These are things that must be made very clear.

[ 3 ] On the other hand, we must bear in mind that the beings of the astral plane have what we call feelings toward matter. They express themselves in this feeling. If these beings are not yet very strong, we can only perceive them in this way, namely through a feeling of coldness. But if they become stronger as their matter increases, they become visible as luminous beings. This explains why, when materializations at spiritualist séances become sufficiently dense, a light phenomenon occurs (mollusk crab as an example). This is a natural process in such a case. Anyone who observes such a thing without this knowledge speaks of miracles. A miracle is nothing more than the intervention of a higher world in ours. It is simply a natural process. This is what happens when other beings from higher planes intervene in human life.

[ 4 ] We understand that a mere cool, dry thought is less effective on the astral plane than a thought that comes impulsively from the soul. If human beings in their present culture have progressed to the point where they are no longer subject to passions – our culture does have something refined about it – when cool thoughts about world events ascend from them to the astral plane, they appear there as cavities, leaving out matter. In ordinary space, matter can be brought in to fill the space. This is not the case with matter that flows out into astral space through thought. In contrast to physical matter, it has the following effect: it displaces what is there, much like drilling a hole in a dough, for example. This is what happens when our thoughts flow out into astral space. Higher matter is the opposite of lower matter: instead of filling space, it displaces what is in space. This is the astral matter that is displaced.

[ 5 ] When a thought penetrates the astral space, a denser layer forms around the cavity created by the thought. Colored phenomena appear around this cavity. It begins to glow and shine around the cavity. This is the thought form that we see first. The astral matter is condensed around it and thus becomes brighter. This brighter light that arises around the thought soon disappears; but if the thought is connected with a powerful impulse of passion, then it has an affinity with the condensed astral matter and enlivens it. Thus, people who are still very undeveloped but very passionate create living beings in the astral space when they think. This ceases later on; as people develop and become calmer, such beings no longer arise when they think. But now you understand that there are beings on the astral plane that originate from humans and also from animals. For such beings also form in certain animals, and even more intensely. But the animal pushes its own impulses into its own astral form, so that in the astral space it usually creates its own image, its own likeness.

[ 6 ] Every animal leaves a kind of trace in the astral space, which has a short life, but remains for a while. But through the strong passionate thoughts of humans, new elemental inhabitants arise in the astral space. Gradually, however, humans reach the point where a kind of neutral elemental being arises on the astral plane. When the point where mere mechanisms arise in the astral realm is finally passed, humans begin to refine their passions and instincts more and more. This leads them to imbue their thoughts with a noble enthusiasm. This also has the power to enliven the astral matter surrounding the thought. For example, the development of patriotism also gives rise to beings of noble form, and the elemental beings thus created contribute to the advancement of what lives in the astral space. The less noble beings that humans create through thoughts filled with passions are obstacles and cause regression. But everything that human beings achieve non-sensually through enthusiasm and so on has a beneficial effect in the astral space.

[ 7 ] The matter compressed in the astral space by passionate thoughts is the same matter that surrounded the previous planet, the Moon, from which the Moon developed to a higher stage. Therefore, wherever such matter exists, there is danger. We humans are such that we must incarnate in today's physical matter. On the former planet, there was not yet the physical matter of today; it was more perfect than that of today's animals and less perfect than that of today's humans. This matter, into which Jehovah strives to incarnate, does not provide a good dwelling place as such. But the beings who are so advanced that they have attained the level they were supposed to reach on the moon will do no harm. They do not love this matter.

[ 8 ] It is not the matter into which humans are now incarnated. But for certain entities that have remained behind on the moon, the astral matter of the moon is, so to speak, a godsend; they want to feed on it, it has a great attraction for them. This proves that we are constantly surrounded by beings whose higher nature is related to our lower nature. When humans create selfish thoughts, this is very welcome to these beings. They are actually more advanced than humans in other respects, but in this respect they have the desire to incarnate in the astral forms that we ourselves create. They are the so-called asuras. Through low thought forms, we provide nourishment for these asuric beings.

[ 9 ] When people who are not yet purified are not dispassionate enough, meditate, and then create strong thought forms, they generate a strong aura of passion around themselves. Such asuric beings incarnate in this aura and can then pull people down. If a person meditates in a sleepy state and then does not rise high enough in thought, they create this matter, and since they have no counterbalance, such beings incarnate in their thought forms. These are higher beings because they had already fully developed the manas on the moon before the buddhi impact came; they therefore do not have the impact of buddhi. Therefore, their manas is selfish. If human beings on Earth had not also received the impact of Buddhi from the moment manas approached them from outside, if they had only developed the forward-pressing manas, they would have become selfish beings in the highest sense. Manasic development tends toward selfishness and independence. It was intended to make humans independent, but then the influence of the Buddhic nature had to come. Because they developed manas too early, the Asuric beings mentioned above missed the influence of the Buddhic nature. Therefore, on the one hand they stand higher, but on the other hand they cannot progress, but continue to develop the Kama-Manas, the egoistic.

[ 10 ] In the middle of the Lemurian race, Kama-Manas appeared on the physical plane in the form of dual sexuality. The god who brought forth Kama-Manas was Jehovah. That is why Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls him the moon god; he is rightly called the god of fertility. He took the outer working of Kama-Manas to extremes. The sexual aspect that emerged in the Lemurian period, when we trace it back and see it in its ever higher and higher nature, becomes the second Logos. Descending through the Kama principle, it became Jehovah; ascending through the Buddha principle, it became the Christ principle.

[ 11 ] But if we sink into the Kama of the pre-earth period, we are pulled down by the asuric beings. The higher forces of our spiritual predecessors are linked to the forces of our own lower nature. Human passions are occultly related to the higher forces of the spiritual beings who preceded us. Wherever there is debauchery, there is matter in which powerful asuric forces pour refined intellectuality into the world. Such strong asuric forces can be found in corrupt human tribes. The black magician draws his strongest serving forces precisely from the swamp of sensuality. Sexual rites are there to banish people into these circles. There is a constant struggle on earth, with one side striving to purify the passions and the other striving to intensify sensuality. The beings who are guided by the Christ principle seek to win over the earth, but the other, hostile beings also seek to seize the earth.

[ 12 ] These embodiments of asuric beings in the emanations of human thoughts filled with passion are one type of astral beings. They are called artificial elemental beings because they are artificially produced by humans. Then there are also natural elemental beings in the astral space. They originate from the group souls of animals. For every animal group, there is a being on the astral plane that unites what is present in the individual animals. We also encounter these in the astral realm. Every animal draws its entire nature behind it astralically like a tail. However, this formation cannot be as harmful as what humans create in the astral realm in the form of elemental beings. It is harmless because it is paralyzed by the group soul of the animals. This is not the case with the beings created by humans, because nothing paralyzes humans, so that these elemental beings are permanent.

[ 13 ] When an animal is tortured, the sum of the pain inflicted on it immediately rebounds on the astral body of the human being. Here, of course, it is reflected as a counter-image; hence the lust of cruelty. Such a feeling of pleasure brings down the human astral body. When humans destroy life, it means something tremendous in humans themselves... (Gap in the text.) There is nothing that can acquire astral forces that have a destructive effect as much as killing. Every killing of a being that has an astral body produces a strengthening of the most savage egoism. It means an increase in power. That is why schools of black magic first teach how to cut animals; cutting in a certain place with corresponding thoughts arouses a certain power, while cutting in another place arouses a different power. The equivalent for the white magician lies in meditation. Something returns on the physical plane if it is done with physically accompanying thoughts; without thoughts, it returns on the Kamaloka plane.

[ 14 ] Overpowering a person by hypnotic means is an even stronger form of killing because it destroys the will. That is why the occultist never interferes with a person's freedom; he only tells the facts. From an astral point of view, lying is both murder and suicide. It pretends something to the other person and creates in them a feeling that relates to a non-existent fact, to nothingness. On the astral plane, the opposite image of nothingness, killing, immediately appears. So you kill something in the human being when you use lies to direct their feelings toward something that is not there, and you commit suicide because... [gap in the text].