An Esoteric Cosmology
GA 94
11 June 1906, Paris
XV. The Evolution of Planets and Earth
To gain an idea of this evolution we must have recourse not to abstractions but to pictures, for pictures have a living, creative quality that is not contained in the pure idea. The picture is a symbol in one world but corresponds to a reality in a higher world.
We know that before developing to its present stage, our Earth passed through a phase called the Old Moon period. But this Old Moon phase of evolution is not to be confused with the satellite we now see in the sky, nor to any other planet that astronomy might ever discover. The heavenly bodies visible today are bodies which have been mineralised. The human eye can only see objects which contain mineral elements and reflect the light, in other words, objects which have a physical body. When the occultist speaks of the mineral kingdom, he is not merely referring to the stones but to the milieu at the central core of which the consciousness of man unfolds. Many scholars regard living beings as mere machines and reject the idea of a vital force. This mentality is a result of the fact that our organism is unable really to behold life. The occultist, on the other hand, says that in our age man lives in the mineral world.
Think of the human eye. It is a highly complicated mechanism, a kind of ‘dark chamber,’ with the pupil as a window and the crystalline as a lens. The whole body of man is composed of a number of physical organs, equally delicate and complicated. The ear is like a harpsichord with a key-board and fibres for strings. And the same may be said of every sense-organ.
The consciousness of modern man is only awakened if connection is established with his physical or mineral body. True, it awakens first in the physical world, but it must none the less gradually light up in the other members of man's being—in the member that is constituted by the life-forces (the plant-nature of man), in the member that is chiefly dominated by the forces of feeling (the animal-nature), and finally in the Ego.
Truth to tell, man only knows what is mineral in the universe. He does not know the essential laws underlying the animal's life of instinct and feeling, and the growth of plants. He simply sees their physical expressions. Try to conceive a plant in super physical existence, having lost its mineral substance—it would be invisible to our physical eyes.
But even though man knows only the mineral, at least he has it in his power. He works it, moulds it, smelts and combines it. He fashions the face of the Earth anew. He is able to do this in our age with the help of machines. If we go back to remote historic ages when as yet no human hand had been laid on the Earth, we find it as it issued from the hands of the Gods. But ever since man began to exercise control over the mineral kingdom, the Earth has been changing, and we may foresee an age when the whole face of the Earth—which at the beginning was the work of the Gods—will have received the stamp imparted by the hand of man.
In the beginning, form was given to all created things by the Gods. This power of giving form has passed from the Gods to men, in so far as the mineral kingdom is concerned. In ancient traditions it was taught that man must accomplish the task of transforming the Earth in fulfillment of a threefold goal, namely the realisation of truth, beauty, goodness. It is for man to make the Earth into a temple of truth, beauty and goodness. And then, those who come after him will look upon his work as we now look upon the mineral world which came forth from the hands of the Gods. Neither cathedrals nor machines have been built in vain. The Gods have given form to the crystal which we extract from the Earth, just as we build our monuments and our machines. Just as in the past the Gods created the mineral world from a chaotic mass, so our cathedrals, inventions and even our institutions are the germs from which a future world will come to birth.
Having transformed the mineral world, man will learn to transform the plants. This denotes a higher power. Today, man erects buildings; in future times he will be able to create and give shape to plant-life by working upon plant-substance. At a still higher stage, he will give form not only to living beings but to conscious beings. He will have power over animal life. When he has reached the stage of being able to reproduce his like by an act of conscious will, he will accomplish, at a higher level, what he accomplishes today in the mineral world.
The germ of this sublime power of generation, cleansed of all element of sensuality, is the word. Man became a conscious being when he drew his first breath; consciousness will reach its stage of perfection when he is able to pour into the words he utters, the same creative power with which his thought is endowed today. In this age, it is only words that he communicates to the air. When he has reached the stage of higher creative consciousness, he will be able to communicate images to the air. The word will then be an Imagination—wholly permeated with life. In giving body to these images, he will be giving body to the word which bears and sustains the image. When we no longer simply embody our thoughts in objects, as for instance when we make a watch, but give body to these images, they will live.
And when man knows how to impart life to what is highest in him, these ‘images’ will lead a real and actual existence, comparable to animal existence. At the highest stage of evolution, man will thus be able, finally, to reproduce his own being. At the end of the process of the Earth's transformation, the whole atmosphere will resound with the power of the Word. Thus man must evolve to a stage where he will have the power to mould his environment in the image of his inner being. The initiate only precedes him along this path.
It is evident that the Earth today cannot produce human bodies such as will be produced at the final stage of evolution. When that final stage has come, these bodies will be a fit expression of the Logos. The one great Messenger, He alone Who manifested in a human body like our own, this power of the Logos, is Christ. He came at the central turning-point of evolution, to reveal its goal.
And now let us enquire into the form in which the Spirit of man lived before this Spirit entered into him by way of the breath. The Earth is a reincarnation of an earlier planet—of the Old Moon. In this lunar period of evolution, the pure mineral did not yet exist. The planetary body was composed of a substance somewhat akin to the nature of wood a substance midway between the mineral and the plant. Its surface was not hard like the mineral—indeed it was liken to turf. It brought forth beings by nature half-plant, half-mollusc, and was inhabited by a third kingdom of beings at a stage of existence midway between the human being and animal. These beings were endowed with a dreamlike, imaginative consciousness. We can envisage the kind of matter of which their ‘bodies’ were composed, by thinking of the nerve-substance of the crayfish. This matter densified to become the substance of which the brain is now composed. On the Old Moon, this matter remained in a more fluid state but on Earth it required a protective sheath of bone—the skull. In this sense, all the substances of which we are composed are ‘extracts’ of the macrocosm. All this preparatory activity in the universe was necessary in order that the Ego might descend into man.
We have heard that man was only ready to receive the germ of his Ego, when, on Earth, he began to breathe the air around him. Did he then breathe on the Moon?
The further we go back in the periods of evolution, the higher the temperature. Atlantis was bathed in hot vapours. In earlier times still, the air was pure warmth; before that again, fire. Fire was there in the place of air. The Lemurians breathed fire. That is why it is said in occult writings that the first Teachers of men were the Spirits of Fire. When physical man appeared on the Earth, air became his element of life. But man changes this air, in that he transforms it into carbonic acid and the breathing-process has thus caused the materialisation of our globe to descend still one degree lower. The equilibrium is restored by the plant-world.
In times to come, the physical body will disappear; man and the Earth will live as astral forms. Physical substance destroys itself by its own forces. But before this metamorphosis comes about, a cosmic night will fall, just as a previous cosmic night marked the transition of the Old Moon evolution to that of our present Earth.
The atmosphere of the Moon contained nitrogen, just as today the atmosphere of the Earth contains oxygen, and it was the predominance of nitrogen which brought about the end of the Old Moon period and the onset of a cosmic night. The cyanides on Earth are survivals from the conditions existing at the final stages of the Old Moon evolution. That is why they have a destructive effect on Earth, for the Earth is not their proper sphere. They are the poisonous remains of life in another age.
Animal-man, as he lived on the old Moon, is thus the ancestor of earthly, physical man; the Spirit within man is the offspring of the Spirits of Fire in the lunar period. The Beings who on the Old Moon were incarnate in the fire, incarnated, on Earth, in the air. But now, has anything of the action of these Spirits of Fire remained in man? On the Old Moon, living beings had no warm blood. What was it that gave rise to the warmth of the blood and, as a consequence, to the life of passions?—The fire which was inbreathed by the beings of the Old Moon and which lives again on Earth in their blood. And the Spirit of the air surrounds the body which contains the heritage of the Old Moon evolution, namely, the warmth of the blood, the brain, the spinal fluid, the nerves.
These examples serve to show that a close study of the transformation of substances is required before we can begin to understand the great processes of metamorphosis which took place during the earlier periods of the Earth's evolution. At a stage still earlier than that of the Old Moon, the planetary sphere which has now become our Earth had a body composed merely of gaseous substance; before that again, we can only speak of a body of sound. It is in this sound—the Cosmic Word—that man's evolution has its origin, proceeding thence towards light, fire, air. Only in the fourth condition does consciousness flash up in the Spirit of man. From this point onwards, the directing force bestowed by the Logos has its rise from within man's own being and his conscience becomes his rightful guide. His primordial being comes to expression in the ‘I,’ the Ego. The conscious Ego is the realisation in man of the Christ Principle.
Kosmogonie XV
Versucht man eine Vorstellung von der planetarischen Entwickelung zu geben, so muß man nicht zu Abstraktionen, sondern zu Bildern seine Zuflucht nehmen. Denn dem Bild eignet eine belebende, schöpferische Kraft, die dem bloßen Begriff nicht innewohnt. Was in der einen Welt symbolisch erscheint, entspricht einer Wirklichkeit in einer höheren Welt.
Wir wissen, daß unsere Erde, bevor sie zu ihrem gegenwärtigen Zustand gelangte, eine Phase durchschritten hat, die man mondartig oder einfach Mond nennt. Aber dieser alte Mond, der unserer Erde vorhergehende Zustand, bezieht sich auf etwas ganz anderes als auf unseren gegenwärtigen Satelliten oder auf irgendeinen anderen Planeten, den die Astronomie jemals entdecken könnte. Die Himmelskörper, die der Mensch heute sieht, sind diejenigen, die sich mineralisiert haben. Unser Auge kann nur die Gegenstände sehen, die mineralische Substanz enthalten und das Licht reflektieren, das heißt, die einen physischen Körper besitzen. Wenn der Okkultist vom Mineralreich spricht, so spricht er nicht von Steinen, sondern von der Sphäre, in der sich heute das menschliche Bewußtsein entwickelt. Viele Gelehrte betrachten ein Lebewesen als eine einfache Maschine und verwerfen den Gedanken an eine Lebenskraft. Diese Denkart kommt daher, daß unser Organismus das Leben nicht direkt wahrnehmen kann. Dagegen sagt der Okkultist, daß der Mensch heute in der mineralischen Welt lebt.
Betrachten wir das Auge. Das ist ein komplizierter physischer Apparat, eine Art Dunkelkammer, die als Fenster die Pupille hat und als Lupe die Linse. Der ganze Körper ist aus einer Summe physischer Apparate geformt, die ebenso delikat wie kompliziert sind. Das Ohr ist wie ein Spinett mit einer Klaviatur, und die Fibern stehen anstelle der Saiten. Und entsprechend verhält es sich bei jedem Sinnesorgan.
Das Bewußtsein des modernen Menschen ist nur wach in bezug auf seinen physischen oder mineralischen Leib. Aber ist es erst einmal auf dieser Daseinsebene erwacht, so muß es nichtsdestoweniger nach und nach auch in den anderen Bezirken des Menschenwesens erscheinen: in demjenigen, der durch die Lebenskräfte bestimmt wird — die pflanzliche Natur des Menschen -, in demjenigen, der hauptsächlich bestimmt wird durch die Kräfte der Empfindungsfähigkeit — die animalische Natur des Menschen - und schließlich in der eigentlichen menschlichen Natur.
Gegenwärtig kennt der Mensch nur das, was mineralischer Natur im Universum ist. Den Instinkt und das Empfindungsleben beim Tier, die Wachstumskraft bei der Pflanze kennt er nicht nach den ihnen innewohnenden eigenen Gesetzen, sondern nur nach ihrer physischen Erscheinung. Man stelle sich vor, eine Pflanze existiere nur in ihrer übersinnlichen Substanz, verlöre also ihre mineralische Substanz, so wäre sie für uns unsichtbar.
Aber wenn der Mensch auch nur das Mineral kennt, so hat er dieses wenigstens in seiner Gewalt. Er bearbeitet, modelliert, schmilzt, berechnet es. Er gestaltet aufs neue das Antlitz der Erde. Noch ist er nur fähig, dieses Antlitz mit Hilfe mechanischer Mittel zu bearbeiten. Gehen wir in vorgeschichtliche Zeiten zurück, wo noch keine menschliche Hand die Erde angetastet hatte, da finden wir sie, wie sie aus der Hand der Götter hervorging. Aber seitdem der Mensch vom Mineralreich Besitz ergriffen hat, verändert sich die Erde, und man kann den Zeitpunkt voraussehen, wo ihr Antlitz ganz und gar von der menschlichen Hand geprägt sein wird und nicht mehr von der Hand der Götter.
Eine bestimmte Form war von Anfang an jedem Ding durch die Götter vorgeschrieben. Für das Mineral ist dieses Vermögen der Formgestaltung von den Göttern auf die Menschen übergegangen. In den alten Überlieferungen hat man gelehrt, daß der Mensch diese Arbeit an der Umgestaltung der Erde vollbringen solle mit dem dreifachen Ziel, Weisheit, Schönheit und Tugend zu verwirklichen. Auf dieser dreifachen Basis soll der Mensch aus der Erde einen Tempel errichten. Dann werden die Wesen, die im Laufe der Entwickelung später erschienen sind als der Mensch, das Menschenwerk betrachten, wie wir das aus der Hand der Götter hervorgegangene Mineralreich betrachten. Die Kathedralen, die Maschinen - sie sind nicht umsonst geschaffen. Der Kristall, den wir heute aus der Erde hervorholen - ihn haben die Götter geformt, wie wir unsere Monumente errichten und unsere Maschinen konstruieren. Ebenso wie sie in der Vergangenheit aus einer chaotischen Masse die mineralische Welt geschaffen haben, ebenso sind unsere Kathedralen, unsere Erfindungen, ja unsere Einrichtungen überhaupt Samenkörner, aus denen eine künftige Welt hervorgehen wird.
Nach der Verwandlung der mineralischen Welt lernt der Mensch diejenige der Pflanzen zu verwandeln. Das ist ein höherer Grad des Könnens. Ebenso wie der Mensch heute Gebäude erbaut, wird der Mensch Pflanzen erschaffen und formen können, indem er an der Pflanzensubstanz arbeitet. Ja, in der Folgezeit wird der Mensch noch höher steigen, indem er nicht nur lebende, sondern sogar bewußte Wesen bilden wird, und er wird sein Vermögen auf das Tierreich ausdehnen. Wenn der Mensch imstande sein wird, sich selbst durch seinen bewußten Willen neu zu erschaffen, wird er auf einer höheren Stufe das verwirklichen, was er heute in der mineralischen Sinneswelt vollbringt.
Der Keim zu dieser Reproduktion seiner selbst, befreit von aller Sinnlichkeit, ist das Wort. Das erste Bewußtsein ist dem Menschen mit dem ersten Atemzug zuteil geworden. Das Bewußtsein wird seine Vollendung erreichen, wenn er imstande sein wird, in sein Wort dieselbe schöpferische Kraft einfließen zu lassen, mit der heute sein Gedankenleben begabt ist. Gegenwärtig vertraut er nur seine Worte der Luft an. Wenn er sich zu einem höheren schöpferischen Bewußtsein erhoben hat, wird er der Luft Bilder mitteilen können. Das Wort wird dann in vollem Sinne eine lebendige Imagination sein. Indem er diesen Bildern Körperhaftigkeit verleiht, wird er das Wort zum körperhaften Träger des Bildes machen. Wenn wir nicht mehr einfach unsere Gedanken in den Gegenständen verkörpern, wie zum Beispiel in der Fabrikation einer Uhr, werden wir den Bildern körperhafte Substanz verleihen. Die Uhr zum Beispiel wird lebendig sein wie eine Pflanze.
Und wenn der Mensch verstehen wird, das Leben auf das Höchste, was in ihm ist, zu übertragen, werden diese Bilder ein eigenes, wirkliches Leben erlangen, vergleichbar der tierischen Existenz. Dann wird der Mensch letzten Endes sich selbst reproduzieren können. Am Ende der Umwandlung der Erde wird die ganze Atmosphäre widerhallen von der Kraft des Wortes. So muß der Mensch sich entwickeln, bis er fähig geworden ist, seine Umgebung nach dem Bild seines inneren Wesens zu modellieren. Der Eingeweihte geht ihm nur auf diesem Wege voran. Es ist einleuchtend, daß die Erde selbst heute noch nicht solche menschlichen Leiber hervorbringen kann, wie sie esam Ende ihrer Entwickelung können wird. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt werden die Körper so weit sein, daß sie als Ausdruck dessen gelten können, was man den Logos nennt. Der große Missionar, der allein in einem menschlichen Leib, gleich dem unsrigen, diese Macht des Logos, dieses «Das Wort ward Fleisch» offenbart hat, das ist der Christus. Er erscheint in der Mitte unserer Evolution, um uns ihr Ziel aufzuzeigen.
Fragen wir uns nun: Unter welcher Form lebte der menschliche Geist, bevor er mittels der Atmung in uns Einzug hielt? - Die Erde ist die Wiederverkörperung eines vorhergehenden Planeten, den man im Okkultismus den Mond nennt. Auf diesem Mond gab es noch kein reines Mineral. Er bestand noch aus einer holzähnlichen Substanz, einem Mittelding zwischen Mineral und Pflanze. Seine Oberfläche hatte nicht die Härte des Minerals, höchstens könnte man sie mit dem Torf vergleichen. Es wuchsen auf dieser Weltkugel halb pflanzenhafte, halb molluskenhafte Wesen, und ein drittes Reich bewohnte sie, ein Zwischenreich zwischen dem Menschen und den gegenwärtigen Tieren. Dies waren gerade diejenigen Wesen, die mit einem traumhaften imaginativen Bewußtsein begabt waren. Man kann sich die Materie, aus der sie zusammengesetzt waren, vorstellen, wenn man sie vergleicht mit derjenigen, die heute die Nervenmasse der Krebse oder die Nerven überhaupt darstellt. In der Tat ist es die Verdichtung dieser Materie, aus der die gegenwärtige Gehirnmasse hervorgegangen ist. Aber während sie damals, auf dem Monde, in einem gallertartigen Zustand leben konnte, muß sie nun auf der Erde von einer schützenden Beinhülle umgeben sein: dem Panzer der Krustentiere oder der Schädelkapsel. So sind alle Substanzen, aus denen wir zusammengesetzt sind, aus dem Makrokosmos hervorgegangen. Und diese universelle Vorbereitung war notwendig, damit das Ich sich in den Menschen hineinsenken konnte.
Aber wir haben gesehen, daß der Mensch erst imstande war, den Keim seines Ich auf der Erde zu empfangen, als er die ihn umgebende Luft atmen konnte. Was atmete er nun auf dem Monde?
Je weiter wir in der Entwickelung zurückgehen, desto mehr erhöht sich die Temperatur. Auf der Atlantis war alles in heiße Dämpfe gehüllt. In diesen alten Zuständen wird die Luft erst heiß, dann feurig: das Feuer nimmt die Stelle der Luft ein. Die Lemurier haben noch Feuer geatmet. Darum heißt es in den okkulten Schriften, daß die Menschen zuerst durch die Feuergeister belehrt worden seien. Als der physische Mensch auf der Erde Fuß faßte, wurde die Luft sein Lebenselement. Aber der Mensch verdirbt diese Luft, indem er sie in Kohlensäure verwandelt, und so drückt der Atmungsprozeß die Verdichtung unseres Erdballs noch um einen Grad herunter. Die Tätigkeit der Pflanzen stellt das Gleichgewicht her. Immerhin bewirkt der physische Leib, der es nötig hat, sich den Sauerstoff der Luft anzueignen, daß die Kohlensäure auf der Oberfläche der Erde sich vermehrt und infolgedessen die menschlichen Körper blutarm werden. Eine Zeit wird kommen, wo der physische Körper verschwunden sein wird und Mensch und Erde astraler Natur sein werden. Denn die physische Natur zerstört sich durch ihre eigenen Kräfte. Bevor sich aber diese Umwandlung vollendet, wird sich eine kosmische Nacht dazwischenfügen, ähnlich derjenigen, welche den Übergang vom alten Mond zu unserer gegenwärtigen Erde darstellte.
Die Atmosphäre des Mondes enthielt Stickstoff, wie heutzutage die irdische Atmosphäre Sauerstoff enthält, und das Vorwalten des Stickstoffs ist es, was das Ende der Mondperiode und den Anfang der kosmischen Nacht bewirkt hat. Was auf der Erde an die letzten Existenzbedingungen des Mondes erinnert, das sind die Stickstoffverbindungen. Daraus erwächst auf der Erde eine destruktive Wirkung, denn diese Stickstoffverbindungen sind hier nicht an ihrem Platze. Es sind schädliche Rückstände aus den Lebensbedingungen eines anderen Weltalters. Die Verbindung von Kohlenstoff und Stickstoff hatte auf dem Mond ungefähr die gleiche Wirkung wie auf der Erde diejenige von Kohlenstoff und Sauerstoff (siehe Hinweis).
Der Tiermensch, der auf dem Monde lebte, ist also der Vorfahre des physischen Erdenmenschen, wie die Feuergeister dieser Mondepoche die Erzeuger des gegenwärtigen Menschengeistes sind. Was sich auf dem Mond im Feuer inkarnierte, das inkarniert sich auf der Erde in der Luft.
Aber wo finden wir beim gegenwärtigen Menschen eine Erinnerung an die Tätigkeit dieser Feuergeister? -— Auf dem Mond hatten die Lebewesen kein warmes Blut. Was hat die Blutwärme und im Verfolg das Aufleben der Leidenschaften verursacht? Das Feuer ist es, das die Wesen auf dem Monde eingeatmet haben und das nun auf der Erde in ihrem Blute wieder Leben gewinnt. Und der Geist der Luft umgibt heute mit einem leichten Sinneskleid diesen Körper, der das Erbe des Mondzustandes bewahrt: die Blutwärme, das Gehirn, das Rückenmark, die Nerven.
Diese Beispiele zeigen uns, daß man sehr sorgfältig die Verwandlung der Substanzen studieren muß, um eine Umwandlung zu begreifen, wie sie sich vollzog im Laufe der Entwickelungsphasen, die der Erde vorangingen. Würden wir weiter zurückgehen, so würden wir sehen, daß unser Planet in vorhergehenden Zuständen einen rein gasförmigen Körper hatte, und, noch weiter zurück, einen Körper von reiner Klangstofflichkeit. Von diesem Klang, der das Weltenwort selber ist, nimmt die menschliche Entwickelung ihren Ausgang, um in der Folgezeit zum Licht, zum Feuer, zur Luft fortzuschreiten. Erst im vierten Zustand wird der menschliche Geist bewußt. Von diesem Zeitpunkt an kommt ihm die Orientierung, die ihm vormals durch das Wort gegeben worden war, aus seinem Inneren, und sein Bewußtsein wird sein eigener Führer. Sein ureigentliches Wesen realisiert sich im Ich. Die Bewußtwerdung des Ich, das bedeutet die Verwirklichung des Christus-Prinzips im Menschen.
Würden wir zurückgehen bis zur ersten elementaren Form, so würden wir vom Wort, vom flutenden Ton aufgenommen werden. Mit der zweiten Elementarstufe würden wir hinüberwechseln zum flutenden Licht. Die dritte Elementarstufe würde uns mit Wärme durchdringen. Endlich würden wir auf der vierten Elementarstufe, in der irdischen Atmosphäre, das Selbstbewußtsein erscheinen sehen, das dem Menschen erlaubt, Ich zu sich zu sagen. (Siehe die schematische Darstellung auf S. 104.)

Cosmogony XV
When attempting to convey an idea of planetary development, one must resort not to abstractions but to images. For images possess an invigorating, creative power that is not inherent in mere concepts. What appears symbolic in one world corresponds to a reality in a higher world.
We know that before our Earth reached its present state, it went through a phase that is called lunar or simply moon. But this ancient moon, the state that preceded our Earth, refers to something completely different from our present satellite or any other planet that astronomy could ever discover. The celestial bodies that humans see today are those that have mineralized. Our eyes can only see objects that contain mineral substance and reflect light, that is, those that have a physical body. When occultists speak of the mineral kingdom, they are not referring to stones, but to the sphere in which human consciousness is developing today. Many scholars regard a living being as a simple machine and reject the idea of a life force. This way of thinking comes from the fact that our organism cannot perceive life directly. In contrast, the occultist says that humans today live in the mineral world.
Let us consider the eye. It is a complex physical apparatus, a kind of darkroom with the pupil as its window and the lens as its magnifying glass. The entire body is formed from a sum of physical apparatuses that are as delicate as they are complex. The ear is like a spinet with a keyboard, and the fibers take the place of the strings. And the same is true of every sense organ.
The consciousness of modern man is only awake in relation to his physical or mineral body. But once it has awakened on this level of existence, it must nevertheless gradually appear in the other regions of the human being: in the one that is determined by the life forces — the plant nature of the human being — in the one that is mainly determined by the forces of sensitivity — the animal nature of the human being — and finally in the actual human nature.
At present, human beings only know what is of a mineral nature in the universe. They do not know the instinct and sensory life of animals or the growth power of plants according to their inherent laws, but only according to their physical appearance. Imagine if a plant existed only in its supersensible substance, thus losing its mineral substance; it would be invisible to us.
But even if humans only know minerals, they at least have them under their control. They work, model, melt, and calculate them. They reshape the face of the earth. He is still only capable of shaping this face with the help of mechanical means. If we go back to prehistoric times, when no human hand had yet touched the earth, we find it as it emerged from the hand of the gods. But since man took possession of the mineral kingdom, the earth has been changing, and we can foresee the time when its face will be shaped entirely by human hands and no longer by the hands of the gods.
From the beginning, the gods prescribed a certain form for every thing. For minerals, this ability to shape form has been transferred from the gods to humans. In ancient traditions, it was taught that humans should accomplish this work of transforming the earth with the threefold goal of realizing wisdom, beauty, and virtue. On this threefold basis, humans should build a temple out of the earth. Then the beings who appeared later than humans in the course of evolution will look upon the work of humans as we look upon the mineral kingdom that came forth from the hands of the gods. The cathedrals, the machines—they were not created in vain. The crystal that we extract from the earth today was formed by the gods, just as we erect our monuments and construct our machines. Just as they created the mineral world out of a chaotic mass in the past, so our cathedrals, our inventions, indeed our institutions in general, are seeds from which a future world will emerge.
After transforming the mineral world, man learns to transform the plant world. This is a higher degree of skill. Just as humans today build buildings, they will be able to create and shape plants by working on plant matter. Yes, in the future, humans will rise even higher by forming not only living beings, but even conscious beings, and they will extend their abilities to the animal kingdom. When humans are able to recreate themselves through their conscious will, they will realize on a higher level what they accomplish today in the mineral world of the senses.
The seed of this reproduction of themselves, freed from all sensuality, is the word. The first consciousness was given to humans with their first breath. Consciousness will reach its completion when humans are able to infuse their words with the same creative power that their thought life is endowed with today. At present, they only entrust their words to the air. When they have risen to a higher creative consciousness, they will be able to communicate images to the air. The word will then be a living imagination in the full sense of the word. By giving these images physical form, they will make the word the physical carrier of the image. When we no longer simply embody our thoughts in objects, such as in the manufacture of a watch, we will give the images physical substance. The watch, for example, will be as alive as a plant.
And when man understands how to transfer life to the highest that is within him, these images will attain a life of their own, comparable to animal existence. Then man will ultimately be able to reproduce himself. At the end of the transformation of the earth, the whole atmosphere will resound with the power of the word. Thus, man must develop until he is able to model his environment in the image of his inner being. The initiate precedes him only in this way. It is obvious that even today the earth cannot yet produce such human bodies as it will be able to at the end of its development. At that point, the bodies will be so far advanced that they can be considered an expression of what is called the Logos. The great missionary who alone, in a human body like ours, revealed this power of the Logos, this “Word became flesh,” is Christ. He appears in the middle of our evolution to show us its goal.
Let us now ask ourselves: In what form did the human spirit live before it entered us through respiration? - The Earth is the reincarnation of a previous planet, which in occultism is called the Moon. On this Moon, there were no pure minerals yet. It still consisted of a wood-like substance, something between a mineral and a plant. Its surface did not have the hardness of a mineral; at most, it could be compared to peat. Half-plant, half-mollusk creatures grew on this globe, and a third kingdom inhabited it, an intermediate realm between humans and present-day animals. These were precisely the beings who were gifted with a dreamlike, imaginative consciousness. One can imagine the matter of which they were composed by comparing it with that which today constitutes the nerve mass of crabs or nerves in general. In fact, it is the condensation of this matter that has given rise to the present brain mass. But while it could live in a gelatinous state on the Moon, it must now be surrounded by a protective shell on Earth: the shell of crustaceans or the skull. Thus, all the substances of which we are composed have emerged from the macrocosm. And this universal preparation was necessary so that the I could sink into human beings.
But we have seen that human beings were only able to receive the seed of their ego on Earth when they could breathe the air surrounding them. What did they breathe on the Moon?
The further back we go in evolution, the higher the temperature becomes. On Atlantis, everything was shrouded in hot vapors. In these ancient conditions, the air first becomes hot, then fiery: fire takes the place of air. The Lemurians still breathed fire. That is why the occult writings say that humans were first taught by the fire spirits. When physical humans gained a foothold on Earth, air became their life element. But humans spoil this air by converting it into carbon dioxide, and so the process of respiration further increases the density of our globe by one degree. The activity of plants restores the balance. After all, the physical body, which needs to absorb oxygen from the air, causes carbon dioxide to increase on the surface of the earth, and as a result, human bodies become anemic. A time will come when the physical body will disappear and humans and the earth will be of an astral nature. For physical nature destroys itself through its own forces. But before this transformation is complete, a cosmic night will intervene, similar to the one that marked the transition from the old moon to our present earth.
The atmosphere of the moon contained nitrogen, just as the Earth's atmosphere today contains oxygen, and it was the predominance of nitrogen that brought about the end of the lunar period and the beginning of cosmic night. What reminds us on Earth of the last conditions of existence on the moon are nitrogen compounds. This has a destructive effect on Earth, because these nitrogen compounds are out of place here. They are harmful residues from the living conditions of another world age. The combination of carbon and nitrogen had roughly the same effect on the Moon as that of carbon and oxygen on Earth (see note).
The animal-human who lived on the moon is therefore the ancestor of the physical human being on Earth, just as the fire spirits of this lunar epoch are the creators of the present human spirit. What incarnated in fire on the moon incarnates in air on Earth.
But where do we find a memory of the activity of these fire spirits in present-day human beings? — On the moon, living beings did not have warm blood. What caused the warmth of the blood and, in its wake, the revival of the passions? It is the fire that the beings on the moon breathed in and that now regains life in their blood on Earth. And the spirit of the air now surrounds this body, which preserves the legacy of the lunar state, with a light garment of the senses: the warmth of the blood, the brain, the spinal cord, the nerves.
These examples show us that we must study the transformation of substances very carefully in order to understand a transformation such as that which took place during the phases of development that preceded the Earth. If we were to go back further, we would see that in previous states our planet had a purely gaseous body, and, even further back, a body of pure sound substance. Human development originates from this sound, which is the word of the world itself, and subsequently progresses to light, fire, and air. Only in the fourth state does the human spirit become conscious. From this point on, the orientation that had previously been given to it by the Word comes from within, and its consciousness becomes its own guide. Its original essence realizes itself in the I. The becoming conscious of the I means the realization of the Christ principle in the human being.If we were to go back to the first elemental form, we would be absorbed by the word, by the flowing sound. With the second elemental stage, we would move over to the flowing light. The third elemental stage would permeate us with warmth. Finally, at the fourth elemental stage, in the earthly atmosphere, we would see the emergence of self-consciousness, which allows human beings to say “I” to themselves. (See the schematic representation on p. 104.)
