The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we spoke of the various embodiments of our planet, of the embodiment in Saturn and in the Sun, and we will just briefly recall that on this sun planet, the predecessor of our earth planet, man had developed to the point that he had a physical and an etheric body, that he had thus ascended to a kind of plant existence. I have also told you how different this plant existence was, however, from what you know today in the plant world around you. We shall see that the plants that surround you today only came into being on our Earth planet. We have also described to some extent how, because these human ancestors on the Sun had an etheric body, they mainly expressed those organs in their physical body that we now know as glandular organs, as organs of growth, reproduction and nutrition. All this could be seen on the sun, just as rocks, stones and plants could be seen on our earth. In addition, there was a realm that we can describe as the retarded realm of Saturn, which contained the potential for the later mineral. Not in the sense that we know it today, but in the sense that bodies had not acquired the ability to take up an etheric body and had thus, to a certain extent, remained at the mineral stage that man had previously passed through on Saturn. We must therefore speak of two realms that have formed on the sun. In theosophical literature, it has become customary to speak of the human being having passed through the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. You see, that is an imprecise way of putting it. This mineral kingdom on Saturn was quite differently formed. In its forms, the first germs, the forerunners of our sense organs, were already present. Likewise, the sun did not have a plant kingdom like today's, but everything that lives in humans today as organs of growth, namely all glandular organs, was of a plant-like nature. They were plant-like because they were permeated by the etheric body.

[ 2 ] Now we have to imagine that this state of the sun has passed through a kind of sleep, a darkening, a latency. But you must not imagine that the passage of a planet through such a sleeping state would be a passage through inactivity, a state of nothingness. It is no more that than the human devachan state. The human devachan is not a state of inactivity. Rather, we have seen how the human being is in constant activity there and collaborates in the development of our earth in the most important way. Only for man's present consciousness is this state a kind of sleep. For another consciousness, however, it presents itself as a much more active real state. All these transitions are a passing through heavenly, higher states, in which important things for the planets take place. In theosophical language they are called 'Pralaya'.

[ 3 ] Let us now imagine how the sun has gone through such a state and how the sun has developed into what is called the third state of our earth, the moon, in occultism. If we had been able to observe this process, we would have seen something like the following: over the course of millions of years, we would have seen the solar existence change and fade away, and after another millions of years, we would have seen it light up again after a twilight state. This is the beginning of the moon's cycle.

[ 4 ] At first, when the sun reappeared, there was no separation between the sun and the moon; they were still together as they had been during the solar age. And then what happened next is what is called a repetition of earlier conditions. On a certain higher level, what had happened on Saturn and the sun was repeated. Then a strange change occurred in the state of this re-emerged sun: the moon separated from the sun. Two planets, or rather a fixed star and a planet, emerged from the old solar system. A larger and a smaller mass formed, the sun and the moon. The moon of which we are now speaking contained not only what the present moon contains, but rather everything that the present earth and moon contain in terms of different substances and entities. If you were to stir all of this together, you would have the moon of which we are speaking, which at that time had separated from the sun.

[ 5 ] The Sun became a fixed star by drawing out the best substances together with the spiritual beings. This is how it advanced to become a fixed star. When it was still a planetary sun, it still had all of this within itself. But because it now gave up everything to an independent planet that would have prevented the beings from developing further, it became a fixed star. And we now have the cosmic spectacle before us that we have a more highly developed body as a fixed star, and moving around it in space is a planet that is less valuable, the moon, that is, today's moon and today's earth in one.

[6]The movement of the moon around the sun was completely different from the movement of the present Earth. If you follow it, you can distinguish two movements. First, the Earth revolves around the sun and, second, around itself. Through this latter movement, which takes place approximately 365 times a year, day and night arise, as you know, through the former, the four seasons arise. But it was not so on the old moon. This moon was in some respects a more polite body to its sun than our earth is, because it always moved around the sun in such a way that it always turned the same side towards it. It never turned its back on the sun. During one revolution around the sun, it turned around itself only once. Such a different movement, however, has a great effect on the beings that develop on the planet.

[ 7 ] Now I will describe this moon planet itself. Above all, I must say that man had progressed a little further than on the sun and Saturn. He had now progressed to the point where he consisted not only of a physical and etheric body, but also of an astral body. So now we have a human being who is composed of a physical body, etheric body and astral body, but who does not yet have an ego. The consequence of this was that this human being of the moon in particular advanced to that third state of consciousness that we have described, to the consciousness of images, the last vestige of which we have in the dream-image consciousness of today's human beings. Now, as a result of this astral body integrating with the other bodies, changes took place in these bodies, particularly in the physical body. We have seen how the glandular organs were at the highest level in the physical body on the sun, and how certain places were permeated by radiations that later hardened into the present solar plexus. Through the work of the astral body on the physical body on the moon, the first beginnings of the nervous system arose. The nerves that you still have today in a similar way in the nerves of the spinal cord were incorporated.

[ 8 ] Now consider this: The human being did not yet have an independent ego, only the three bodies mentioned existed. This human ego was in the atmosphere around the moon, just as the etheric body was on Saturn and the astral body on the sun, and from there this ego, embedded in the divine basic substance, worked on the physical body. If we now consider that at that time the I was still working as a companion of divine beings, that it had not yet been separated out, had not yet fallen out of this divine-spiritual being, we see that the I, on its way to earthly existence, has in some ways undergone a kind of deterioration and in some ways also an improvement. An improvement in that the I has become independent, but a deterioration in that it has now been exposed to all doubt, all error, all evil and all that is bad.

[ 9 ] The I's worked from the divine-spiritual substance. If today an I works down from the astral plane to the physical plane, it is a group soul of the animals. In a similar way to how these group souls work their way into the animals today, the human ego worked its way into the three bodies from the outside in those days. Only it could create higher bodies than those of today's animals because it worked out of the divine substance. There were living beings on the moon that were higher than today's highest apes in terms of their appearance, in terms of everything they were, but not as high as today's humans. There was an intermediate realm between today's humans and the animal kingdom. Then there were two further realms, both of which had regressed: one of which had, so to speak, not been able to absorb the astral body from the sun, and so had remained at the stage at which the glandular organs were on the sun. This second kingdom on the moon was between the present-day animals and present-day plants, in the middle of them; it was a kind of plant animal. Today there are no similar beings directly on earth, we can only recognize rudiments of them. There was still a third kingdom, which had already retained the Saturn state on the sun; it was in the middle between mineral and plant. So we have three kingdoms on the moon: plant-mineral, animal-plant and human-animal.

[ 10 ] What are now minerals, what you walk on, did not yet exist on the moon. What we call rocks, topsoil and humus substance did not yet exist at that time. The lowest realm was between plant and mineral. The entire substance of the moon consisted of this realm. The surface of the moon resembled a present-day peat soil, where plants are in the process of forming a kind of plant pulp. The moon creatures walked around on a pulpy plant-mineral mass. The moon was like this for certain periods of its development. You can also compare it to a cooked salad. There were no rocks in the modern sense. The most there was, were certain inclusions that you can compare to the mass that forms the wood or bark of certain trees. The mountains of the moon consisted of such lignifications, such wood masses of lignified plant pulp. It was like a kind of withered old plant. The mineral kingdom was formed in this. These plant animals grew on it. They could not move independently, they were firmly rooted to the ground, like corals today.

[ 11 ] In our myths and legends, in which there is deep wisdom given by initiates, we are reminded of this in the myth of the death of Baldur. The Germanic sun or light god once had a dream in which his imminent death was announced to him. This made the gods, the Aesir, who loved him, very sad. They sought a means of saving him. The goddess Frigg, mother of the gods, made all the beings on earth swear a solemn oath that none of them would ever kill Baldur. They all swore, and so it seemed impossible that Baldur could be subject to any kind of death. Once the gods were playing and threw all kinds of things at Baldur, without wounding him; they knew that he was invulnerable. But Loki, the opponent of the Aesir, the god of darkness, thought about killing Baldur. Then he heard from Frigg that she had taken an oath from all beings not to kill Baldur. But far away, there was a plant, mistletoe, that was harmless, to which she had not taken an oath, and that she betrayed to him. The cunning Loki took the mistletoe and brought it to the blind god Hödur, who, unaware of what he was doing, killed Baldur with the mistletoe. Thus the evil dream of mistletoe was fulfilled. It always played a certain role in popular use. Something eerie, ghostly was expressed through it. What was taught about mistletoe in the ancient mysteries of the druids has passed down to the people as legend and custom.

[ 12 ] The underlying truth is this: the mineral plant gruel existed on the moon. The plant animals of the moon grew on it. Some of them developed further and reached higher levels on Earth, but others remained at the lunar level, and when Earth was formed, they could only take on a stunted form. They had to retain the habit they had on the moon. They could only live on a plant basis, as parasites on the earth. This is how mistletoe lives on other trees, because it is a regressive remnant of the moon's ancient plant animals.

[ 13 ] Baldur was the expression of that which develops further, that which brings light to the earth; Loki, on the other hand, the representative of the dark forces, of that which is retarded, hates that which has developed, that which has developed further. Therefore Loki is the opponent of Baldur. All beings on earth were unable to do anything against Baldur, the god who gave light to the earth, because they were his equals, they had undergone the development. Only what was left behind at the lunar stage, what felt connected to the old god of darkness, was able to kill the god of light. Mistletoe is also a specific remedy, as poisons are generally healing agents. Thus, if we delve deeply into ancient folk legends and customs, we find cosmic wisdom.

[ 14 ] Now you remember the beings who had the I as their outermost body on Saturn, and that there were those on the Sun who had the astral body as their outermost body. On the moon there were beings whose outermost body was the etheric body. They consisted of an etheric body, an astral body, an ego, a spirit self, a life spirit, a spiritual human being and a member above that, the eighth, which we cannot yet talk about in humans today, the Holy Spirit. We could only have seen them in their etheric bodies as ghostly entities. At that time they had the same developmental value as humans have today. Christian esotericism calls them angels. They are beings that today stand immediately above man because they have developed up to the level of the Holy Spirit. They are also called spirits of twilight or lunarian Pitri.

[ 15 ] The spirits of egoism had as their leader on Saturn an entity called the Father God. The spirits of fire had the Christ as their leader on the sun, in the sense of the Gospel of John, the Logos. On the moon, the leader of the spirits of twilight was the same as what is called the Holy Spirit in Christianity. Those beings who had gone through their humanity on the moon did not need to descend to the form of the physical body here on earth.

[ 16 ] The planetary formations have become more and more dense. Old Saturn, in its densest state, had only the state of heat substance. The densest state of the sun had the same state that we see today in the gases of the air. However, you have to imagine these substances as being somewhat denser than today's heat substance and gases. And on the lunar level, the gaseous substances of the sun had condensed to such an extent that they formed this pulpy, dense, watery, swelling mass, of which all these beings, including the highest, the animal-humans on the moon, consisted. If you imagine the white of a chicken egg to be somewhat denser, you have approximately this substance, and into this substance of man the nervous system was incorporated.

[ 17 ] This moon was surrounded by a kind of atmosphere that was quite different from the Earth's atmosphere. We can recognize the character of this substance by thinking of a passage in Goethe's “Faust”: it is where Mephistopheles wants to lift himself up with Faust on his mantle. There he wants to create fire air; that would be air in which watery substances are dissolved in a mist-like form. This air, permeated with watery substances, is called fire air, also fire mist. The beings on the moon breathed this air. They had no lungs, not even the highest beings. They breathed through a kind of gill, like fish do today.

[ 18 ] This fire air, called Ruach in the Hebrew tradition, can actually be represented in a certain way. Today's people have lost this Ruach, but the ancient alchemists were able to create the conditions for it; they could thereby make elemental beings their servants. This fire mist was therefore something well known in alchemical times, and the further back we go, the more people had the opportunity to produce it. This fire mist was breathed by our ancestors on the moon. It developed further and differentiated into today's air and into what else was created on earth under the influence of fire.

[ 19 ] The smoke-like, vapor-like moon atmosphere, which had a certain degree of heat, was interspersed, at certain times more, at certain times less, by currents that hung down like strands of air, so to speak, and penetrated the human body. In a similar way, the human body on the moon was suspended from a kind of cord that stretched out into the atmosphere, just as a child hangs in its mother's body today from the umbilical cord. It was like a cosmic umbilical cord; and from this fiery air, substances entered the bodies that can be compared to what humans produce today, the blood. But the ego was outside of the human being and sent something through these cords that was similar to blood into the bodies, and this substance flowed in and out of them. The beings never touched the surface of the moon; they hovered around it, orbiting it, as if they were floating. Just as today's aquatic animals move in the water, so did these lunar human animals move. It was the work of the angels, the spirits of the twilight, that they let these blood juices flow into the humans.

[ 20 ] These very different conditions had other consequences. A kind of blood system began on the moon. A blood-like substance flowed in and out of the cosmos, just as air flows into the body today, and so these moon men also developed an ability that only occurs with blood. It was the first sounding of inner tones for emotional experiences. Only when the astral body is in the being does feeling arise, and they could live out this feeling in sounds, and in a remarkable way. They were not really produced sounds; they could not have screamed out their pain, there was no independence of screaming, of producing sound, but it coincided with certain experiences. At certain seasons on the moon, what might be called an evolution of the reproductive instinct occurred, and the inner experiences that these beings had in the process could be uttered; otherwise they remained silent. In a certain position of the moon in relation to the sun, at a certain season, the old moon uttered sounds into the cosmos. The beings on it screamed their urges into the world. We have preserved rudiments of this in the cries of certain animals, for example, the stag. The cries were more the expression of general processes, not individual experiences that are expressed arbitrarily. A cosmic event found its expression in them.

[ 21 ] We must understand all this as only approximate descriptions, because we are bound to words that have been coined for things that have only materialized during our time on Earth. We would have to invent a language first if we wanted to express what the eye of the seer sees. Nevertheless, these descriptions are important because they are the first step on the path to truth. Only through the image, the imagination, do we find the way to direct perception. We should not make abstract concepts, no scheme, no vibrations record, but images arise in ourselves; this is the direct way, the first stage of knowledge. Because it is as true that man was already there with his forces, as it is true that when he makes himself ideas today, they will lead him back to the conditions in which he was then.

[ 22 ] After all the entities on the moon had gone through their development and were able to advance to higher levels, the time came when the moon and the sun united again, fell back into one body and thus entered the pralaya. After they had gone through this state of latency together, a new existence emerged: the first pre-announcement of our existence on Earth. Now the first three states briefly repeated themselves at a higher level, first the Saturn existence, then the Sun existence, and then the Moon split off again and orbited the remaining body. But this Moon still had the Earth within it.

[ 23 ] Now comes another highly important change. Everything that is earth throws the present moon out of itself. These are the worst substances and entities, the unusable ones; this is contained in the present moon. Everything that was a watery, swelling substance on the old moon has frozen on today's moon — this can be physically proven — and what was capable of further development remained behind as earth. On earth, evolution takes place through the separation of the old sun into these three bodies: sun, moon and earth. This separation took place many thousands of years ago, in the ancient Lemurian period. And so today's mineral, plant, animal and human being emerged from the ancient moon beings, which were described as plant-minerals, plant-animals and animal-humans. The mineral, plant, animal and human being emerged, who has become capable of absorbing the ego within himself, which used to hover around him and was united with the deity. The union of the ego with the human being took place after the separation of the sun, moon and earth, and from that point on, man has become capable of developing the red blood in himself and rising to his present level.