The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] We shall most easily be able to understand humanity's path through the three embodiments that took place before the earth: Saturn, Sun and Moon, if we consider the human being once more in sleep, in a dream. When a person is sleeping, we see the astral body and the ego enclosed in it as a shroud floating above the physical body. This astral body is then outside the physical and etheric bodies, but remains connected to them. It sends, as it were, threads, or currents, into the general body of the cosmos and is, as it were, immersed in it. So that in a sleeping person we have the physical, the etheric and the astral body, but the latter extends feeling threads out into the great astral physicality.

[ 2 ] If we imagine this state as permanent, if here on the physical plane there were only people who had interwoven the physical body with the etheric body and, floating above it, an astral soul with the ego, then we would have the state in which humanity was on the moon. Only that on the moon this astral body was not strongly separated from the physical body, but just as much as it stretched out into the cosmos, just as much it descended into the physical body. But if you imagine the state of being asleep today, but in such a way that not even dreaming is possible, then you have the state in which humanity was on the sun. And if you now imagine that the person has died, that his etheric body, connected with the astral body and the ego, has also gone out, but in such a way that the connection is not completely severed, that what has gone out, what is embedded in the surrounding cosmic mass, sends its rays down and works on the physical body, then you have the state that humanity had on Saturn. Down on the globe of Saturn, only what is in our purely physical body was contained; it was surrounded, as it were, by an etheric-astral atmosphere in which the I was embedded.

[ 3 ] People were actually already present on Saturn, but in a dull, dull consciousness. These souls had the task of keeping something that belonged to them down below active and in motion. They worked on their physical body from above. Like a snail that works on its shell, they also work on the bodily organs from the outside, like an instrument. We will describe what the souls were working on above. We have to describe this physical Saturn, this Saturn in general, a little.

[ 4 ] I have already said that what was formed on the physical body were the sensory organs. What lived as sensory organs in the human being was worked on externally by the souls on the surface of Saturn. They were really in the surrounding space of Saturn, their workshop was down there. There they worked out the types for eyes and ears and for the other sense organs.

[ 5 ] What was the basic property of this Saturn mass? It is difficult to describe because we have hardly a word in our language that fits, for our words are indeed quite materialized; they only apply to the physical plane. But there is a word that can express this fine work that was done there. It can be described by the expression: to mirror. The mass of Saturn had the property of reflecting in all its parts what came from outside as light, sound, smell, and taste. Everything was reflected back, and it was perceived in space as a reflection in the mirror of Saturn. It can only be compared to looking into the eye of one's fellow human being and seeing our own image reflected back at us. All human souls perceived themselves in this way, but not only as a colorful image. They also tasted and smelled themselves and perceived themselves in a certain feeling of warmth. Thus Saturn was a reflective planet. The people living in the atmosphere threw their beings into it, and from these images that emerged, the structures for the sensory organs were formed, because they were images that had a creative effect. Imagine standing in front of a mirror, looking at your own image, and this image begins to create, not a dead image as with today's lifeless mirror: there you have the creative activity of Saturn, there you have the way people themselves lived and worked on Saturn.

[6] This took place down on the sphere of Saturn. Above, the souls had the deep trance consciousness of which I spoke yesterday. They knew nothing of this reflection, they just did it. In this dull trance consciousness they had the whole cosmic universe within them, and so the whole cosmic universe was reflected out of their being. But they themselves were embedded in a basic substance of a spiritual nature. They were not independent, but only one link of the spirituality surrounding Saturn. Therefore they could not perceive spiritually. Higher spirits perceived with their help. They were the organs of the spirits that perceived at that time.

[ 7 ] A whole number of higher spirits surrounded Saturn. All that Christian esotericism has called the messengers of the Godhead, angels, archangels, elemental forces, revelatory powers, all that was contained in this Saturn atmosphere. Just as the hand belongs to the organism, so the souls belonged to these beings, and just as the hand has no independent consciousness, so they had no consciousness of their own in those days. They worked out of the consciousness of higher spirits, out of the higher world consciousness, and thus shaped the images of their sense organs, which then became creative, and they also shaped the mass of Saturn. You must not imagine this Saturn mass as being as dense as the human flesh mass of today. The densest state of Saturn, which it could ever attain, was not even as dense as our present-day physical air. Saturn also became physical, but it only attained the density that is called the density of fire, of warmth, of warmth in which present-day physics no longer sees any substance. But for the occultist, warmth is a more subtle substance than gases; it has the property of always expanding further. And because Saturn was made of this substance, it had the gift of expanding from within, of radiating everything, of mirroring everything. Such a body radiates everything; it has no need to keep everything within itself.

[8] Saturn was not a uniform mass, but rather such that one could have perceived a differentiation, a configuration in it. Later, the organs even rounded into cell-shaped spheres, only that cells are small; but in those days they were large spheres, like a mulberry or blackberry. You would not have been able to see on Saturn, because every reflection threw everything that came to it in the way of light back outwards. Within this mass of Saturn everything was dark. Only towards the end of its development did Saturn light up a little. In the vicinity of the atmosphere of this mass of Saturn there were a number of beings. You did not prepare your sense organs by yourself, for the human soul was not yet sufficiently developed to be able to work alone. It worked together with other spiritual entities, to put it in trivial terms, under their leadership.

[ 9 ] Certain entities worked as independently as today's humans did on Saturn, which at that time were at the human level. They could not be shaped like today's humans because heat was the only substance on Saturn. But in terms of their intelligence and self-awareness, they were on the same level as modern humans; however, they could not form a physical body or a brain. Let us take a closer look at them. Today's human being consists of a tetrad: physical body, etheric body, astral body and the I, and in the I, the spirit self, life spirit and spiritual man are prefigured — manas, buddhi, atma. The lowest link on the earthly plane, even if it is the most perfect in its kind, is physical corporeality; the next highest is the etheric body, then the astral body and the ego. There are also beings that have no physical body, whose lowest link is the etheric body. They do not need the physical body to operate in our material world; for that they have a higher limb than our seventh. Other entities have the astral body as their lowest limb and a ninth for it, and still others, who have the I as their lowest limb, have a tenth limb for it. When we look at the entities that have the I as their lowest link, we have to say that they consist of the I, spirit self, life spirit, spiritual man. Then comes the eighth, ninth and tenth link, which Christian esotericism calls the divine Trinity: Holy Spirit, Son or Word, Father. In theosophical literature, they are usually called the three Logoi.

[ 10 ] These entities, of which the I is the lowest link, were precisely those that are of particular interest to us in the evolution of Saturn. They were at the stage at which human beings stand today. They were able to exercise their I under the very different conditions that I have described. These were the ancestors of our present-day humanity, the people of Saturn. They irradiated the surface of Saturn with their I-ness, their outermost being. They were the implanters of I-ness into the physical body that was forming on the surface of Saturn. In this way they ensured that the physical body was prepared in such a way that it could later become the carrier of the I. Only a physical body like the one you have today, with feet, hands and head and the integrated sense organs, could become a carrier of the I on the fourth stage, the earth. For this, the germ had to be implanted on Saturn. These I-beings of Saturn are also called the spirits of egoism.

[ 11 ] Egoism is something that has two sides, one admirable and one reprehensible. If the entity of egoism had not been implanted again and again on Saturn and the following planets, man would never have become an independent being, able to say “I” to himself. The sum of the power of Saturn is already inherent in your physical being, which marks you out as an independent entity, differentiating you from all other entities. To achieve this, the spirits of egoism, the Asuras, had to work. There are two types of them, apart from small shades. One kind is that which has developed egoism in the noble, independent way, which has risen higher and higher in the development of the sense of freedom: this is the noble independence of egoism. These spirits have guided humanity through all the following planets. They have become the educators of men for independence.

[ 12 ] Now on every planet there are also spirits that have remained behind in their development. They have remained stationary, they did not want to go further. From this you will recognize a law: when the most excellent falls, when it commits the “great sin” of not going along with development, then it becomes precisely the worst. The noble sense of freedom has been perverted into its opposite in reprobation. These are the spirits of temptation that are difficult to consider; they tempt one to reprehensible egoism. Even today they are still in our environment, these evil spirits of Saturn. Everything that is evil draws its power from these spirits.

[ 13 ] Every planet, when it has completed its evolution, becomes spiritual again; it no longer exists, so to speak, and enters into a state of sleep, only to emerge from it again. So does Saturn. His next embodiment is the Sun, the Sun you would receive if you mixed together everything that is on the Sun, the Moon and the Earth, together with all earthly and spiritual beings, as if in a cauldron. The development of the Sun is distinguished by the fact that the etheric body has entered the physical human body prepared below. The sun already has a denser physicality than Saturn; it can be compared to the density of today's air. The human physical body, your own body that you formed, you see on the sun interspersed with the ether body. You yourself belonged to an air body, as on Saturn to a warmth body. Your etheric body was already down there, but in the atmosphere of the sun your astral body with your ego was integrated into the great general astral body of the sun, and there you worked down into the physical and etheric bodies, similar to what happens today in sleep, when your astral body is outside and works on the physical and etheric bodies. At that time, they worked out the first systems for all that are today the organs of growth, digestion and reproduction. They transformed the sensory organs from Saturn; some retained their character, others were transformed into glands and growth organs. All growth and reproduction organs are transformed sensory organs that have been taken over by the etheric body.

[ 14 ] If you compare the body of the Sun with that of Saturn, you will find a certain difference. Saturn was still like a reflective surface; it reflected back everything it received in taste, smell, and all sensory perceptions. It was not so with the sun. While Saturn reflected everything directly back, without taking possession of it, the sun permeated itself with it and only then reflected it. This was because it had an etheric body. Its body, permeated by the etheric body, did what plants do with sunlight today: it absorbs sunlight, permeates itself with it and then gives it back. If you put it in any dark place, it loses its color and wilts. Without light, there would be no green pigment. So it was with your own body on the sun: it imbued itself with light, but also with other ingredients, and just as the plant sends the light back after it has been strengthened by it, so once the sun radiated the light back after it had processed it within itself. But not only with light, but also with taste, smell, warmth, with everything, it permeated itself and radiated it out again.

[ 15 ] Therefore, your own body on the sun was also in a state of plant-like existence. It did not look like a plant in the modern sense, because that only developed on Earth. What you carry inside today, the glands, the organs that we call growth and reproduction organs, were on the sun as mountains and rocks are on the earth today. You worked on them as one tends and cultivates a garden today. The sun radiated back the ingredients of space. It shone in the most glorious colors. A wonderful tint went out, a delicious aroma streamed from her. The old sun was a wonderful being in space. Thus the people of that time worked on their own physicality on the sun, like certain creatures, for example corals, work on their construction from the outside. This happened under the guidance of higher beings, because there were higher beings in the atmosphere of the sun.

[ 16 ] We must concern ourselves particularly with one category of these, which was at the same stage as human beings today. On Saturn we have the Spirits of Egoism, which implanted the sense of freedom and independence and were at the human stage. On the Sun, there were other entities that did not have the I but the astral body as the lowest link. They consisted of the astral body, I, spirit self, life spirit and spirit man and the eighth link, what Christian esotericism calls the Holy Spirit, and finally, as the ninth link, the Son, the “Word” in the sense of the Gospel of John. They did not yet have the tenth link; instead, they had started at the bottom with the astral body. These were the spirits that were active on the sun; they directed all astral work. They differ from present-day humans in that humans breathe air because air is in the environment of the earth, but those spirits breathe warmth or fire.

[ 17 ] The sun itself was a kind of air mass. What surrounded it was the materiality that had once formed Saturn itself: fire, warmth. The part that had condensed had formed the gaseous sun, and what could not condense was a surging sea of fire. These beings could therefore live on the sun in such a way that they inhaled and exhaled warmth and fire. That is why these spirits are called fire spirits. They stood on the sun at the level of humanity, and they worked in the service of humanity. These entities are called sun or fire spirits. Man at that time was at the level of sleep consciousness. These sun or fire spirits already had I-consciousness. Since then they have also developed further and ascended to higher levels of consciousness. In Christian esotericism they are called archangels. And the most highly developed spirit that was on the sun as a fire spirit, and is still active on earth today with the most highly developed consciousness, this sun or fire spirit is the Christ, just as the most highly developed Saturn spirit is God the Father. For Christian esotericism, therefore, such a sun-fire spirit was embodied in the carnal body of Christ Jesus, and indeed the highest, the ruler of the sun spirits. In order for him to come to earth, he had to use a physical body. He had to be under the same earthly conditions as man in order to be able to work here.

[ 18 ] In the same way, on the sun we have to do with a solar body, with a body of the sun planet, as it were, with I-spirits, which are fire spirits, and with a regent of this sun, the most highly developed sun spirit, the Christ. When the Earth was a sun, this spirit was the central spirit of the sun. When the Earth was a moon, it was more highly developed, but it remained with the moon. When the Earth became an Earth, it was most highly developed and remained with the Earth, after it had united with it according to the Mystery of Golgotha. It thus forms the highest planetary spirit of the Earth. The Earth is its body today, as the sun was its body in the past. Therefore, you must take the word of John literally: “He who eats my bread tramples me underfoot.” For the earth is the body of Christ, and when people who eat the bread taken from the body of the earth walk on the earth, they trample the body of Christ underfoot. Take this word quite literally, as all religious documents must be taken literally. But first you have to know the letter in its true meaning and then seek the spirit.

[ 19 ] Now one more thing: Not all beings within this solar mass reached the stage of development I have spoken to you about. Some remained at the level of Saturn existence. They could not absorb into themselves that which radiated into space and send it back after absorption. They had to send it back directly, they could not permeate themselves with it. These entities therefore appeared on the sun as a kind of dark inclusions, as something that could not emit its own light. And because they were trapped in the mass of the sun, surrounded by a mass emitting its own light, they appeared as dark spots. We must therefore distinguish between those solar spots that radiated what they had received into space, and those that could not radiate anything out. They appeared as dark inclusions within the solar mass; they had learned nothing on Saturn. Just as you do not find glands and growth organs everywhere in the human body, but it is interspersed with dead tissue and incorporated tissue, so the sun was interspersed with these dark inclusions.

[ 20 ] Our present Sun is the descendant of the ancient terrestrial solar mass. It threw out the Moon and the Earth and retained the best. That which was present in the solar mass at that time as remnants of Saturn has its rudiments in the present Sun in the so-called sunspots. They are the last vestiges of Saturn, remaining as dark inclusions in the luminous solar mass. Our occult wisdom reveals the hidden spiritual sources of physical facts. Physical science establishes the physical causes of sunspots through its astronomy and astrophysics; but the spiritual causes lie in those remaining residues of Saturn.

[ 21 ] We now ask ourselves: what realms existed on Saturn? Only one realm, the last vestiges of which are preserved in the present mineral. When we speak of the passage of man through the mineral kingdom, we must not think of today's mineral. Rather, you must see the last descendants of the Saturn mineral in your eyes, ears and other sensory organs. That is the most physical, the most mineral part of you. The apparatus of the eye is like a physical instrument and remains unchanged for some time after death.

[ 22 ] The one realm of Saturn advances on the Sun to a kind of plant existence. The human body itself grows towards us like a plant. What was left behind as the realm of Saturn was a kind of mineral realm of the Sun. This took the form of atrophied sensory organs that could not fulfill their purpose. But all these entities on the sun that were developing human bodies did not yet have a nervous system within them; this was only incorporated on the moon from the astral body. Plants also have no nervous system and therefore no sensation. It is a misunderstanding to ascribe sensation to them.

[ 23 ] But these astral bodies, especially those that emanated from the fire spirits, sent a kind of current into the physicality that was down there as physical and etheric bodies. These light currents spread out in a tree-like pattern. The last vestiges of these inflows on the sun, which later thickened and took on an external form, are the organs we call the solar plexus. They are the last condensed echo on the sun of ancient irradiations condensed into substantiality. Hence the name plexus solaris, solar plexus. You have to imagine the bodies you had on the sun as if rays were penetrating them from above, intertwining in a tree-like pattern. This is how the sun presents itself in the numerous ramifications that are in your solar plexus. These ramifications are represented in Germanic mythology in the world ash tree, which of course also means many other things.

[ 24 ] Then the sun went to sleep and transformed into what we call the moon in the occult sense. We are dealing here with a third embodiment of the earth, which in turn will present us with a ruling central spirit. Just as the highest ruler of Saturn, the I-Spirit, appears to us as Father God, the highest ruler, the highest God of the Sun, the Sun God, as Christ, so the ruler of the moon form of the Earth will appear to us as the Holy Spirit with his hosts, who in Christian esotericism are called the messengers of the Godhead, the angels.

[ 25 ] Thus we have completed two days of Creation, which in the esoteric language are called Dies Saturni and Dies Soli. In addition to these there is Dies Lunae, the Moon-day. It has always been realized that one was dealing with a guiding Deity of Saturn, the Sun and the Moon.

[ 26 ] The word “dies” = day and “deus” = God has the same origin, so that “dies” can be translated as well as “day” as “deity”. So you can just as well say “dies solis” = solar day as solar god and mean at the same time Christ-spirit.