The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. The Life Course of Human Beings in the Context of Planetary Evolution

[ 1 ] Today, I would like to give you a kind of supplement and extension to what was said in the last lecture about the life course of human beings. We can discuss some more intimate matters and also add a few things here and there that had to be omitted from the public lecture. Above all, I would like to place this life cycle in a larger context. I would like to show you how human beings, as they stand before us today, are in fact a kind of microcosm, a small world; how they encompass within themselves everything that surrounds us, not only on Earth, but in a certain sense also in the starry sky, as a law of their development.

[ 2 ] As you will recall, it has often been said here that our Earth has to undergo a similar development to that of the human being himself; that our Earth was not from the beginning the planet we inhabit today, but that it is, so to speak, the reincarnation of other planets. In the sense of spiritual science, we speak of our Earth having developed from a planet that preceded our Earth, albeit an enormous number of years ago, and we have often spoken of this planet bearing the name “Moon” in occultism. Not because it should somehow be confused with today's Moon. Today's moon, which is a satellite of our Earth, is a kind of slag that has been discarded as useless. You could see the predecessor of the Earth forming if you could mix together everything that our Earth and the moon are today with everything they contain in terms of spirit and soul. You would then obtain a planet that would be something like the predecessor of our Earth, the moon. On that moon, from which our Earth gradually developed, physical human beings did not yet exist in their present form, but a kind of physical predecessor of human beings lived on the moon, although this predecessor was still quite animalistic in nature. You must not imagine that what is human today was contained in the animalistic human beings of the moon. That would be a materialistic conception. On the old moon, beings of an animal-human nature roamed around, higher than today's mammals, but lower than today's human beings. What is now the soul within the human being was not yet within the moon. It was something that enveloped human beings at that time, just as their astral aura invisibly surrounds them today.

[ 3 ] I have often said that at night the human astral body leaves the physical body. During sleep, the astral body is then connected to the physical body only by an astral cord in the region of the spleen, which is perceptible to the clairvoyant. The spleen not only has a physical function, but also serves to connect the physical with the spiritual and soul aspects of the human being. The spleen is the point of connection between the physical body and the astral body. That is why you can read in every anatomy textbook that nothing definite is known about the spleen. The spleen is one of those organs that stand at the boundary of the physical organs. The astral body, which during sleep is connected to the physical body only through the spleen, works to remove the substances of fatigue from the physical body. To the clairvoyant, the sleeping human being appears as if enveloped in a strange cloud that is constantly working on the physical body.

[ 4 ] What is now outside the physical body during sleep was constantly outside the physical body during the lunar state and was connected with the general divine world spirit. Part of the spirituality enveloping the moon only separated itself from human beings during their existence on earth. That is why occultism says that human beings have animal-spiritual predecessors. But modern man would never have developed from this on his own if you only accept materialistic ideas. What worked from outside had to penetrate and develop into later stages. So the ensoulment spoken of in the myth of paradise really took place on earth. You can take this myth of paradise literally in the broadest sense. The air that surrounds us today was the true body of the human soul on the moon. At that time, the air was still completely spiritualized. Just as the earth today is surrounded only by physical air, the moon was surrounded by a shell that was permeated by soul substance. And now you understand why the air has become soulless, physical. The soul entered the body: “And God breathed into the man the breath of life, and thus man became a living soul.” This is the deepest wisdom in this myth of paradise.

[ 5 ] On the moon as a physical world body, man was therefore much more imperfect as a physical being, and accordingly, everything was not yet as advanced as it is today. I have also described this moon body to you here many times before. Let us recall once more what this world body probably looked like. There were no such rocks, no such topsoil, no such solid ground on which we walk today on the moon. This ancient moon was a kind of semi-living being as a world body. Imagine a peat bog, but even more decomposed than today's peat — like a plant pulp or spinach, for example. This pulpy mass was permeated with woody substances. Instead of our present-day rocks, there was a kind of wooden foundation on the moon, and above it a mass that was half plant, half stone. On this grew beings that stood midway between plants and animals, plant animals, so to speak. Today's parasitic plants are latecomers of such plants as lived on the moon, especially mistletoe. It can only grow on other plants because it is a remnant of a lunar plant that grew on the moon on a kind of plant base. This is related to the special significance of mistletoe in folk poetry.

[ 6 ] Above these beings, which were half plant and half animal, stood the humans. If the moon had remained as it was then, it would have kept all this with it, and the souls of human beings would never have been able to develop the ‘animal-human beings on the moon’ into the human form we know today. The entire substance of the moon was not suited to enabling human beings to develop further. To do this, what is now on the moon had to be thrown out first. Only then did the material of the Earth provide the possibility of developing the animal-human to the level of today's human. Thus, we have a predecessor of our Earth, which we call the Moon planet, which is a combination of our present Earth and the present Moon, which was only thrown off from it so that the purified substance could be obtained to bring about the human being in the form in which he appears today.

[ 7 ] Even earlier, our Earth was a planet that spiritual science calls the “Sun,” but which is not the same as today's Sun. If you were to mix together today's Earth, today's Sun, and today's Moon, with all the beings that belong to them, you would get the planet that was the former Sun. Cosmically speaking, the sun is a much higher being than our earth. Its inhabitants are spiritual beings who always live in a state that humans only experience when they are between death and a new birth in the devachanic world. They are devachanic beings, whom we could call our devachanic companions. In order for these beings, who had already passed through the stages that humans go through today, to ascend to this stage, they first had to cast off the moon of that time, just as the Earth later cast off the moon of today. It had to be cast off from the sun of that time, and as a result, that planet became a fixed star. A star is not a fixed star from the beginning. In truth, a fixed star has developed from a planet. Our Earth will also become a fixed star one day; it will then also be a sun, and our Earth inhabitants will then also have a spiritual existence, just like the sun inhabitants do today. But for this to happen, the moon first had to be cast off.

[ 8 ] This sun, for its part, developed from a planet that is so far back in time that it is very difficult for today's humanity to imagine. This requires a high level of initiation. This planet is called “Saturn.” Saturn transformed into the sun, the sun into the moon, the moon into the Earth, the Earth will transform into “Jupiter,” Jupiter into “Venus,” and Venus into a planet called “Vulcan.”

[ 9 ] Now someone may ask: Venus is already in the sky today, and so is Jupiter — how do all these planets relate to each other? It would be a completely false idea to think that humanity today was ever on Saturn, which is now out in outer space. That would be like having a six-year-old child and a fifty-year-old man in front of you and believing that the child's powers could ever be transferred to this man. The man was once a six-year-old child; he went through the same stage. It is the same with the present planet Saturn. It has nothing to do with the development of the Earth, but it represents the stage at which the Earth once was. Just as the fifty-year-old man was the same as the six-year-old boy, so our Earth was once in a similar state to that of today's Saturn, today's Sun, and today's Moon. But if you look at today's Venus, it represents a future state of the Earth. The Earth will one day be in such a state. Venus is not just any celestial body that humans will one day inhabit, but the Earth will also one day be Venus. These are generic names that represent the relevant stages of a planet.

[ 10 ] As humans stand before you today, they consist of the physical body, which contains the same substances as the entire mineral kingdom. Furthermore, they consist of the etheric body, which plants also have, then the astral body, which animals also have, and then the ego. If we now go back to Saturn, the human being — the physical ancestor of humans at that time — had nothing but the predisposition for the physical body. He only acquires the predisposition for the etheric body on the Sun, the predisposition for the astral body on the Moon, and the I develops on Earth. That is the meaning of successive development.

[ 11 ] But on Saturn there was nothing like today's physical human body. When Saturn was at its densest, it was like this: when I speak here, I cause the air to vibrate. If you did not need to hear my words, I could set the air in motion without speaking, and you could see the vibrations of my words — the very specific movements of the air — and you would see images of my words. If you then knew the context, you could deduce from the vibrations what I had said. My words are the reason why the air is in motion here. Now imagine that you could freeze the air waves in an instant: then my words would fall down. You would have something like oyster shells on the earth, and you could see the shapes of my words in the solidified air. This is roughly how you must imagine the human body, the animal bodies, the plants, and the mineral crystals on Saturn: dissolved out of their solid state into an air-like condition. For all of this lived on Saturn at that time only as a surging, billowing air matter. What is a crystal today is solidified, billowing matter from Saturn. The same is true of plants and animals, which existed on Saturn as vibrations of the light, fine Saturn matter. It was just as if higher spirits had spoken all beings into the Saturn matter, just as I speak the vibrations into the air here. The creative spirits of Saturn brought the Saturn matter into inner vibrations, which were the harbingers of the later plant, animal, and human bodies.

[ 12 ] This is the beginning of our evolution – “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word resounded through the Saturn matter, and all beings were in vibrations in this Saturn matter. Think of Chladni's sound figures as a comparison: if you stroke a brass plate sprinkled with fine sand or dust with a violin bow, you will see a wide variety of figures on the plate. This is because you held the plate steady and stroked it. Stroking it produces a tone with certain vibrations and lines. Where the plate does not vibrate, the dust remains; elsewhere, it shakes it off. Here you can, as it were, elicit the figures from the tone coloration, just as they were once spoken into matter in the beginning through the “Word.” Matter is internally structured and organized according to the laws of sound vibrations. Gradually, these vibrations gave rise to those solid bodies.

[ 13 ] On the sun, the etheric body was added and now spiritualized part of these forms that had developed on Saturn. The form spiritualized by it rose up to a kind of plant existence. On the moon, the astral body was added. Here, the beings rose to a kind of animal existence. On Earth, the soul was added with the ego. However, human beings could only come into being on Earth because what had been discarded by the predecessor of the Earth became what is now the physical matter of the moon. Certain components will continue to be separated from the Earth so that human beings can continue to develop into Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan beings.

[ 14 ] Now you must be aware that in occultism, a careful distinction is made between the first and second halves of the Earth, because in the first half, the Earth experienced a passage through Mars. At that time, the possibility of forming warm, red blood was taken up. The iron content of the Earth comes from Mars, and the incorporation of iron into the blood is connected with this passage through Mars. The ancient Greek and Roman initiates, who knew that it was precisely with red blood that courage and aggression were given to human beings, therefore designated Mars as the god of war. The names that astronomers give to newly discovered stars today are arbitrary. At that time, names were still considered to be something taken from the nature of the thing itself. The courageous nature of the soul is thus connected with the forces that the earth owes to Mars. So Mars, as the courageous one, was given the name of the god of war. In contrast, the second half of the Earth is increasingly connected with forces that the Earth owes to Mercury. However, the connection between the Earth and Mercury is more of a spiritual nature.

[ 15 ] So you have the different stages of our planet: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, because that is where the strong influence came from, then Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. This is then expressed in the sequence of the days of the week. The initiates have expressed the sequence of Earth incarnations in the names of the days of the week. You must start with Saturday, which was Saturn's day. It is still called Saturday in English and Zaterdag in Dutch. Then comes Sunday, Monday, Mars day, mardi in French; in ancient Germanic, Ziu was the god of war, hence “Ziustag,” Tuesday in English. Wednesday is a more exoteric name; it was called Mercury day by the ancients, mercredi in French, Wodanstag in Germanic — because Wodan is a Mercury being — Woensdag in Dutch, Wednesday in English. Then we have Jupiter's day, French jeudi. The Jupiter of the Germans is Donar, the thunderer, hence Thursday. Then Venus's day, French vendredi, German Freyatag. And then it starts all over again, because Vulcan is a new stage of Saturn.

[ 16 ] What I have just described to you, this human body has all gone through to a certain degree. The traces of what was movement in Saturn are now present in the physical body as vibrational processes. So when the physical body develops during the first seven years, it is a kind of repetition of Saturn's existence, and that is why in occultism the period from the first to the seventh year, that is, until the teeth change, is called the time of Saturn's existence. The same forces are at work that first appeared when the human being was developed only in their physical body on Saturn. Then the etheric body is born, and with it the forces associated with the solar existence. We call the period from the seventh to the fourteenth or sixteenth year of life, during which these forces are active, the solar existence of the human being. You must be clear that all the forces that were in the human being at that time, as the forces of blossoming life, that is, the solar forces, emerge and develop during the period from the change of teeth to sexual maturity. This is important because only then can we begin to understand the connection between these human forces and the corresponding present-day forms of those stars, when we remember the time when the Earth itself was a similar star. Thus, forces that are also related to today's Saturn are active in the child until the age of seven. Here you see the first inner seed of that vast and powerful wisdom that has been handed down as astrology from the times of the truly great initiates and which is no longer understood today. Because there is an inner relationship between Saturn and childhood, you now understand how these things are connected internally. You also see how the forces of the sun itself are drawn out. What is important for the human being later on has been completed with the moon and the earth: the formative forces are particularly important for the development of the human being from the age of seven to sexual maturity. This in turn gives you a true insight into how extraordinarily important it is that children, especially during this period, have a deeper relationship with what is called the spiritual sun in relation to their etheric body.

[ 17 ] Here you can see the more esoteric connection between things, which I have already hinted at in my public lecture. Above all, remember that during this period it is particularly important to teach children a sense of beauty. If you do not teach them a sense of beauty during this period, you will not be able to make up for it later, because completely different forces will be at work then. This period is connected with the perception of light and shadow, and there is nothing better you can do than teach the child a sense of light and shadow. I know a distinguished art historian who once complained quite bitterly: "You're supposed to give people lectures on art history. When I try to make them understand and show them pictures, they have no idea. Young people come from high school and have no sense of light and shadow; they cannot even understand why a hand is shortened; one could tie in light and shadow in the broadest sense, but people have very little sense of it."

[ 18 ] People can only develop a sense of beauty if they learn to understand what makes the sun beautiful on earth, the spiritual deeds of the sun. This is very important. The beings of the sun have a spiritual-divine existence. That is why it is also necessary for religious development to begin at this time. This is connected with the development of the human etheric body. Just as the sun was able to elevate the existence of its beings to spirits in cosmic development, so the human being is able, as an educator, to awaken in the child between the change of teeth and sexual maturity a receptiveness, a feeling for the purely spiritual and for the religious, because there the sun body develops freely in all directions.

[ 19 ] From the age of fourteen to twenty-one or twenty-three, you then have the moon existence of the human being, in which his astral body comes to the fore. This is the epoch of existence in which the instincts easily come out, which must be fought in the most eminent sense; everything that cannot be purified must be cast off. What emerges must sometimes be treated like the dross of the moon; some things really must be cast off, as happened with the moon.

[ 20 ] We could take a deeper look into this period and see how deeply human beings are connected to the entire structure of the world. We would see how, in fact, because human beings are unable to cast out certain forces that are actually lunar forces, those terrible diseases emerge that are called juvenile dementia and dementia praecox. This is a specific phenomenon which, through its peculiar symptoms, reveals how it clings to the astral body that is just emerging from the etheric body. Try observing such a person who, at the age of sexual maturity, sails into dementia praecox. Strange symptoms appear, showing a peculiar addiction to repetition. The astral body is sometimes very intelligent, but the way in which the astral body relates to the etheric body is disordered. Ask such a person, for example: How much is five times six? — He answers: Thirty. — How much is seven times eight? — Thirty. — How much is six times nine? — Thirty. — And so on, always thirty. This is a kind of memory overload, and so you can imagine how they cannot emerge from the stage of the etheric body, how they cannot bring about the lunar age for themselves. From this perspective, one can shine a light deep into the microcosm.

[ 21 ] From the twenty-first to the twenty-eighth or thirtieth year, we have the Mars existence of the human being. It is precisely during this time that the courageous character of the human being emerges through the blood sphere. It is not for nothing that people are drawn to Mars service during these years. In part, these things happen instinctively. In many cases, they are also traditions of what was once known spiritually.

[ 22 ] Then come preparations for future ages. When the soul is left more and more to its own devices, it initiates in the human being the process that will take place cosmically with the Earth. Something will detach itself from the Earth so that it can rise higher, up to Jupiter. And human beings are already beginning this process today. Here, too, they are a microcosm. Something inner detaches itself and develops into that freedom of the soul which we call the Mercury existence, which reaches its peak in the thirty-fifth year of life. We speak of midlife, just as we have rightly called seventy the age of the patriarchs. Thus, at the age of thirty-five, human beings gain their independence. They enter an age in which they not only experience, but also strengthen and consolidate what they have experienced inwardly. Through the firm establishment of the will, the human body is left to its own devices, and the inner self consolidates. Now the person becomes an advisor to those around them. Their judgment now has value for others. Previously, they had to listen to the world, but now the world can listen to them. This is important, because many sins are committed in this regard. Above all, people harm themselves when they stand up and give advice before they have reached the age of maturity, the middle of life. If they feel like a student who is merely repeating what they have heard, they will not throw obstacles in their own path, as happens when they present all kinds of things as their own teaching. In doing so, they render their best powers ineffective. Knowledge can be acquired beforehand, but wisdom is something that must be developed internally. Knowledge is what must first be gathered and can then become wisdom.

[ 23 ] At the age of forty-nine, the Jupiter age begins, in which the soul becomes even freer within itself by surrendering the body even further to itself and developing within itself the best powers in order to transition into the Venus age, which begins in the sixty-third and sixty-fourth years of life. By then, the inner self has consolidated to such an extent that the human being has been able to shed all external egoism in a beautiful development. All that remains is love for what is in the world. He no longer wants anything for himself; he is now there for his surroundings. Humanity is only just beginning to develop this in its very earliest stages, which is why it is still difficult to talk about it today.

[ 24 ] In spiritual science, we speak of a sevenfold structure of life and show how we can understand the human being as a small world that looks back on a past cosmic epoch and points to future development. Thus, he is born out of the universe — not only out of the past, but in his entire development there is also something prophetic that points to a future epoch. And what is to happen there is already happening today in the course of human life. Therefore, it is not entirely nonsensical to say that human beings truly get to know themselves when they get to know world evolution. When they let their gaze wander from Saturn to Venus, they see in the great world what is happening in their own existence. This is the connection between human beings and the entire cosmos. If you imagine human beings as they are, with all their organs divided up in the cosmos, you get the idea that has been preserved in an ancient Central European myth. According to this myth, the whole world was created from a primeval human being, the giant Ymir: from his skull came the vault of heaven, from his blood the rivers, from his bones the mountains, and so on. The myths of Osiris and Dionysus say something similar. So when we speak of the divided primordial human being, we mean nothing other than that we can find the entire cosmos in the human being, and when the human being enters the cosmos, he finds his own existence magnified within it. We must expand our own knowledge to include knowledge of the world, and not brood over our inner selves. Just as we see ourselves in the body in which our soul and spirit are concentrated, so we may regard the great body, which is the expanded image of our own body, as the divine body, as the image of the world spirit, and in self-knowledge we have knowledge of the world, knowledge of God.

[ 25 ] Thus, human beings are born out of the Godhead and can gradually approach it again through their knowledge of the Godhead. Entering into the cosmos and unlocking the existence of the world with all human soul forces: this is the mood that can come to us from spiritual science. Through it, human beings learn to see the world as a great body of the Godhead, and they learn how their own selves came forth from this body. If one first learns to feel this through spiritual science, this feeling ultimately transforms into a sense of godliness. With this feeling, with this experience, what human beings can learn through the spiritual scientific worldview is completed, albeit in the very distant future.