The Rudolf Steiner Archive

29. Gems and Metals in their Relationship to Earth and Human Evolution

[ 1 ] I spoke to you earlier about the fact that every human being has dormant powers that can be developed and that can elevate them to a higher level of existence. Just as the physical world is perceived through physical organs, the supersensible world can be perceived through supersensible organs. At that time, the means by which human beings can become clairvoyant were indicated, albeit fragmentarily. Today, in order to lead us to our topic, we want to mention certain means that are used in inner training.

[ 2 ] New instructions must be followed at each stage. What is discussed today is not sufficient on its own, but it fits in with the rest. On the path to discipleship, an instruction is given that humans should accustom themselves to developing a very specific relationship with the supersensible world, a moral relationship. At the first stage, humans must realize that just as they are sentient beings, animals are also sentient beings. However, just as humans have an individual soul, animal groups have a generational soul. Thus, all lions, all sharks, all frogs, and so on, have one soul together. In other words, while humans have the soul as something internal, the souls of animals, the spiritual connecting threads of animals, so to speak, extend into the astral world, where the community souls of animal groups are located. When a human being is hurt, he feels it alone. But if you hurt a lion, the group soul feels it, which does not live on the physical plane, but on the astral plane.

[ 3 ] The training now aims to establish a relationship, a relationship of feeling, with the animal souls on the astral plane. Here is an example: In some regions, the ancient Germans regarded the horse as an object of worship. They planted a horse skull on their houses as a symbol. The choice of such a symbol shows that they had a very special relationship with the horse. Where did this come from? The horse first appeared at a very specific time. In the middle of the Atlantean epoch, this species of animal appeared, gradually of course. This coincided with the development of intelligence. Even if humans did not express this clearly in words, they felt an attraction to the horse comparable to that of a lover to his beloved. Even today, Arabs still have a special relationship with their horses. Some references can be found in mythology. Thus, the intelligence of Odysseus conceived a wooden horse. In this sense, humans will develop a feeling for the species soul of the various animals. When this enters consciousness, the relationship to the astral plane begins to blossom.

[ 4 ] In this way, a moral relationship to the plant world can also develop. The occultist not only sees the beauty of the plant, but also senses something like a smiling or sad face. One has a great deal of this moral sensitivity. If you develop such a moral relationship, you enter into a relationship with the lower region of the Devachan plane.

[ 5 ] One can also develop a subtle sensitivity to the dead world of stones. Rocks have a group soul on the Devachan plane, just as animals have a group soul on the astral plane. The souls of minerals live in Devachan. That is why they are inaccessible to humans. Just as a fly running across our hand has no idea that there is a soul behind it, so humans do not know that stones have souls.

[ 6 ] If stones have souls, then you will also understand how a moral relationship with them can arise. A human or animal body has desires, passions, and instincts. The plant body no longer has desires, but it still has instincts. The stone body has neither desire nor instinct, which is why it presents us humans with an ideal in the sense that our instincts should be spiritualized. And in the distant future of humanity, this will be achieved: humans will have bodies without desires and instincts. One day, humans will be like diamonds; they will no longer have inner instincts, but these will then be controlled externally.

[ 7 ] The stone already represents this chastity today; it is desireless matter. The occult student must already develop this desirelessness within himself. In this sense, the stone stands above animals, plants, and humans. An old Rosicrucian formula begins with the words: I have placed the eternal word of creation in the stone. Chaste and virginal, the stone preserves this creative word in the depths of physical existence.

[ 8 ] If one can elevate such feelings toward the stone to a spiritual experience, one becomes clairvoyant in the highest parts of Devachan.

[ 9 ] I will now characterize the mineral kingdom from another perspective. Let us go back in the evolution of the Earth as we know it to the Atlantean period. The atmosphere was filled with water vapor. The Atlanteans also looked very different from today's humans. And even further back, when the Lemurian continent existed and temperatures were still very high, humans were half aquatic creatures. At that time, all minerals were also in a different state. Lead could not possibly have been solid. There was also a time when gold was not yet solid; that was when the sun and the earth were still united. When the earth separated from the sun, traces of this finer substance were still visible. Like all metals, it solidified and formed veins of gold in the rock. Going back even further, we come to a time when gemstones also solidified. At that time, coal was also still transparent and formed diamonds. The physical conditions prevailing at that early time made this possible. At another time, carnelian was formed, and at yet another, topaz.

[ 10 ] Now you must bear in mind that the soul of man already existed at that time, but it did not yet have a physical body. The earth was once in a state in which it would have been completely impossible for a physical body to inhabit it. Human beings had only the etheric body. At a certain time, the basis for the eyes arose in this etheric body. The physical eye was only formed later through the etheric body. All other organs were first structured and formed out of the etheric body. Each time such an etheric organ was formed, the cause was desire. The astral body had the desire to perceive something, to see, so it acted on the etheric body and formed the etheric eye out of it; only later was the physical eye structured out of it. The etheric counterpart arose in the mineral kingdom, and this desireless counterpart is chrysolite. Thus there is indeed an intimate connection between human vision and chrysolite. This is why occultists use stones for special purposes. They sense a sympathy between vision and chrysolite and know how to use it to treat certain eye diseases.

[ 11 ] The faculty of hearing developed earlier than the faculty of sight. In the chaste mineral kingdom, hearing was preformed as onyx. Now, the sense of hearing is most closely related to the purest matter. Where sound waves flood through space, there is the finest sound ether, also called number ether or chemical ether. There is also the ether of warmth, light, and life. The fine sound ether was the impetus for hearing and for the formation of the onyx faculty. I remind you here of the old man with the lamp in Goethe's “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake.” His lamp turned all wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, and the pug, the dead dog, into onyx.

[ 12 ] With the sense of touch came carnelian, with the sense of taste came topaz, with the sense of smell came jasper, with the development of the intellect came beryl, and with the emergence of the power of visual imagination came carbuncle. As a beautiful legend tells, when Lucifer was cast down from the heavenly realms, he lost a stone from his diadem—that was the carbuncle. In fact, this gemstone came into being at the same time as the human imagination, initially pictorial, began to awaken.

[ 13 ] The emerald came into being with the solar plexus, which is connected with the involuntary, unconscious movements in the human body. At the time of the earliest formation, when the first beginnings of the human physical body arose, the predisposition for the diamond was formed. You see how deep the connections in the world are. This is not superstition, but wisdom.

[ 14 ] Here I would like to mention two facts from the rich field of occultism. You know that there are also moderate tendencies among the labor unions. One particularly moderate group comprises a certain professional association, namely the printers. The editor of their newspaper was even fired because he was so moderate. The printers were the first to encounter workers and principals. People have no idea how dependent they are on their environment. Because printers work with lead—which not only attacks the lungs—it has a psychological effect: it brings about a certain sober attitude.

[ 15 ] Another example. I met a person who gradually became a good theosophist. An inexplicable ability worried him. He publishes a magazine and is able to quickly find analogies. If a scholar were to search for such analogies, he might sit there perplexed for months. The person in question found what he was looking for with a glance at the bookshelf. His thinking became so free that it was no longer constrained by the physical brain. But this also has its great dangers. “Where does this come from in me?” he asked me. I told him that he might have a lot to do with copper. And that was indeed the case: he played the French horn, which also contains copper. This was enough to cause such a strong effect. From this you can see how everything in the outside world has a profound influence on human beings, and how metals and precious stones are related to human nature.

Answers to Questions

Question not noted.

[ 16 ] When viewing plants artistically, this initially affects the astral body, while occult viewing affects the etheric body. The artist may encounter the archetypes of some of his works, be they sculptures, paintings, or melodies; consciously, they are found on the Devachan plane.

What is gold?

[ 17 ] When the Earth and Sun still formed a single mass and everything was still pure ether, everything was dissolved into a fineness like sunlight. Minerals could not coagulate. Only after the sun had separated and some of the pure sunlight remained with the earth did it condense into gold in the veins of the earth. Gold is condensed sunlight and is directly related to the sun.

[ 18 ] Sapphire corresponds to the feet in humans. The feet are a much more important limb than is commonly assumed. In the past, the feet had the ability to hold on as if sucking, similar to what a fly does.

[ 19 ] Opal corresponds more to a region from which the lungs also originate.

[ 20 ] Ruby is connected to what is called the higher organ of the brain, the organ of intuition.

[ 21 ] Iron evokes a certain sensual excitement in humans. When the Earth encountered Mars, this property was also created in the blood. Occultists do not like to touch objects made purely of iron.

Question about the meaning of the novel “Vril” by Edward Bulwer.

[ 22 ] Everything that existed in the world in the past will return. The Vril force is based on something special. At present, humans can only use the forces of mineral nature. Gravity is mineral, electricity is also mineral. We owe the operation of railways to coal. But what humans do not yet know how to use is the power of plants. The force that makes the stalks grow in a cornfield is still a latent force, and humans will harness it just as they have harnessed the power of coal. That is Vril. It is the same force that fakirs still use. They live in atavism — a characteristic of their ancestral state.

Was Goethe an initiate?

[ 23 ] Goethe's initiation took place between his stays in Leipzig and Strasbourg, where he was close to death. However, he was not aware of this at the time. This did not happen until 1795. As early as 1784, it reappeared in him, but still indistinctly. At that time, he wrote the fragmentary poem “Die Geheimnisse” (The Secrets) in a moment of enlightenment. It was not until “The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” that he made his confession. His initiation on the physical plane was carried out by a very specific personality.