The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] We have seen how our earthly conditions developed out of the cosmos. We have seen how, in the distant past, our earth was connected with what today shines down from the sky as the sun, and how, at a certain point in time, this sun separated from the earth. Later, from that world entity which, after the separation of the sun, still contained the present moon, this moon also withdrew, and yesterday we considered how this separation of an original community into three world bodies is intimately connected with the entire evolution of man and our cosmos in a spiritual sense. For certain beings left our Earth's mass with the forces of the sun. These beings had previously worked within our Earth, so to speak from within, but since the separation of the sun and the Earth, they have been working from outside on the various beings, including human beings. This naturally changed all the conditions of human life on Earth, and later they changed again when the moon also separated. So what we know for a time as Earth plus Moon then underwent a change through the departure of the Moon. And the meaning of the whole evolution was, as we have seen, that if human beings had remained exclusively under the influence of the forces of the Sun, they would have developed too rapidly; on the other hand, if the sun had separated itself completely from the earth and withdrawn its forces, the further development of the earth would have taken place in such a way that the earth beings, especially human beings, would have become frozen under the influence of the moon forces. Thus, a balance is maintained in relation to human evolution.

[ 2 ] I have already pointed out to you that those beings who initially radiated their own spiritual power to the Earth through the Sun, thereby bringing about the evolution of humanity, are the spirits of form or the powers. They are, so to speak, the ones closest to the Earth’s development. The leader of these “powers,” along with his host, we might say, separated himself; after the separation from the Sun, he dwelt on Earth and later separated himself from Earth with the Moon. Thus, we first have a lunar deity, that deity whom the biblical record designates as Jehovah. But those other solar powers, which radiate their light from without and act as form-spirits, are called the Elohim, the spirits of light, in the biblical record. Under the influence of the Elohim on the one hand and of Jehovah on the other, balance is maintained in the development of the human being. But we have seen that it is not only humanity that undergoes development, but that all beings in the cosmos undergo their own development. Even those exalted beings who send us their powers through the light—the spirits of form—have also undergone their own development; they were formerly at a lower stage and have only now risen to their present level. What we have now said about the Elohim and Jehovah also applies to the most mature of these spirits, who have made themselves fully capable of finding their further development, from the time of the Earth’s formation onward, either on the Sun or on the Moon. But there are such beings everywhere who have remained behind at some stage. We saw yesterday that planets like Venus or Mercury owe their existence to the fact that beings have remained behind, situated between humans on one side and the exalted solar spirits on the other; they needed a dwelling place more exalted than Earth, but they could not inhabit the Sun because they were not yet mature enough for it. These are exalted beings who far surpass human development but have not yet attained the state of the solar spirits. They form a very important class of beings in relation to the development of humanity on Earth. So while on the one hand we have the mature beings, standing between them and humanity are the beings just described, whom we collectively refer to as Luciferic beings; we name them after the one who is, so to speak, their leader, after the figure we call Lucifer.

[ 3 ] Now we must understand how Jehovah and the Elohim on the one side, and the Luciferic beings on the other, are connected with human development. Through the interaction of the sun gods and the moon god, a twofold entity arises, and we will understand what arises when we observe how human development was before. Let us remember once again that the earth went through an ancient state of embodiment, that of Saturn; that after a period of rest, the sun, then the moon, and only then our earth came into being. In terms of its evolution, man is connected with all these embodiments of our earth; man as he appears to us today is a very complicated being. Today, it consists of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. These four members of the human being interact in a very complex way. A being that had only a physical body in our physical world would be a stone, a mineral; our mineral kingdom indeed has only a physical body here on Earth. A being that has an etheric body in addition to its physical body is of a plant nature; our plant world consists of such beings. A being with a physical, etheric, and astral body stands on the animal level, and only a being that also possesses an ego stands on our Earth at our level, at the level of human existence. But this is only a very sketchy description when we say that human beings today have these four members of their being. And how sketchy it is will become clear to us when we take a look at the long, long development of human beings.

[ 4 ] We ask ourselves: Which of the four members of our human being is the oldest? — One might easily believe, since the human ego initially appears to be the highest—that which makes a human being a human being in the first place—that this ego is also the oldest member. But that is not the case. Neither the ego nor the etheric or astral body, but rather the physical body is what the human being possessed first and foremost. This physical body was already formed in its earliest form on ancient Saturn, but you must not imagine that it looked anything like it does today. When you consider the physical body of today, you first have solid limbs, a solid skeletal system—in short, components we describe as solid; then we also have liquid components of all sorts of consistencies; furthermore, the physical body is permeated on all sides by air-like, gaseous substances; and finally, you find within it something that, from an occult perspective, is substantial warmth, inner warmth. Consider for a moment the human being in relation to his warmth and his surroundings. His warmth does not depend on his surroundings; he does not have to adapt to his surroundings like a mineral; in a cold environment, he does not become cold like a mineral, but carries within him the source of his own warmth. Imagine removing from the human being everything that is solid, liquid, and gaseous; imagine the physical body of the human being existing in space, formed from warmth—just as the warmth pulsates in your blood—then you have what existed on ancient Saturn. Only it was not in the form it is today, but in its earliest embryonic stage. This was particularly the case in the middle of Saturn’s development. Saturn had an initial state, a middle state, and a final state. Describing the initial state would be very difficult, because few people have developed the ability to conceive of the properties Saturn possessed before it condensed to the point of consisting of warmth. If you mentally transport yourself back to those times of the distant past, you must not imagine that, had you been able to observe Saturn from somewhere in outer space, you would have seen anything of it. It had no light; Saturn did not shine. It was only toward the end of its development that it began to shine. If you had been able to approach it in the middle of its development, you would have felt only that it was becoming warm, like an oven that has no external boundaries but is self-contained: you would have entered a space of heat. However, you must not imagine this body of heat as uniform. If you had a sense of temperature differences, you would find that there are lines of heat in all directions, to all sides; you would sense forms of heat. The whole of Saturn consisted of forms that were formed solely in warmth, and these forms were the archetypes of the physical human body. Saturn does not take this any further at all, even though it is fruitful for human development; later, as it wanes, it does take it further, but in a deeper sense this is not fruitful for human development.

[ 5 ] Now let us move on to the development of the Sun. After a period of rest, Saturn transforms into the Sun. Outwardly, in material terms, what happens is that in the middle of the Sun's development, a condensation of matter takes place. The Sun consists not only of heat, but also of gas and air, in the occult sense, therefore, of heat and air. And again, everything in the sun undergoes its development within the conditions that can exist in heat and air. First, the following happens: The human being, who, when he consisted only of heat, could not yet take on an etheric body, is now permeated by an etheric body on the sun, so that he consists of two members, the physical and the etheric body. But this physical body on the sun is still very different from what it is now. Let us try to form a rough idea of the physical body on the old sun. We imagine that we have inhaled, that the inhaled air has entered us. So imagine the act of inhaling and the effect in a certain warmth. Now imagine everything away except the inhaled air, which, so to speak, reproduces the entire human body in its effect — imagine everything else, everything solid and liquid, away, and hold on to only the air and the warmth. Imagine, then, that a form arises before you, such as arises when you look only at the inhalation and its effect. Now follow the form of the inhaled air and the warmth contained in the human being, and you will have approximately the form that the human being had in the middle of the Sun's development. You may now ask: If we have lines of warmth and, in addition, gas currents that form this physical body, how does the clairvoyant see this gas in the Akashic Record? He perceives it as something very definite. When the warmth condenses into air and there are no other conditions—not like today on Earth, where the sun shines in from outside—it begins to glow at the moment when the gas, the air, separates from the form of warmth. So you have formed the physical body on the sun in such a way that it is a kind of germ-like form of heat and a form of gas-air currents that shine in the most wonderful way and glow in the most varied colors. This entire sun ball consists primarily of luminous bodies of heat, which are the uranium element of our human physical body and are permeated by the etheric body. Man has ascended to a higher stage; he has attained the etheric body in addition to the physical body. It is he himself who, as part of the solar structure, radiates the luminosity of light into the universe. The physical body has become a luminous body by taking the etheric body into itself. The physical body is thus on the second stage of its perfection, while the etheric body, which has only just been radiated onto the sun, is still on the first stage.

[ 6 ] Now let us follow the human being further. The sun gradually transforms itself into the lunar body after it has again undergone a pause, a state of rest. In material terms, this means that the air form condenses into a watery substance: a liquid is formed. In fact, the old moon was a liquid world body, and in it you would find, as plastic formations, the physical human bodies, which now consist of flowing juices, of watery components in which, let us say, air currents circulate as today do respiration and heat currents. The physical body now consists of three members: water, gas or air, and heat. And the former etheric body that it had returns during this lunar period, but now the human being is able to take up the astral body as well, so that it consists of three members: the physical, the etheric, and the astral bodies. Now, already during this lunar period, it becomes impossible for all beings connected with the moon to keep the same pace in their development. Not only during our Earth's development, but already in preparation during the Moon's development, the Sun once left the common world body, so that in the middle of the Moon's development we have two bodies, the Moon body — Earth plus Moon — and the Sun, which separated itself with the most advanced beings, because these beings needed a more sublime arena for their further development. Now, because the finer forces and beings left, the coarser ones remained on Earth, and this world body — Earth plus Moon — underwent, so to speak, a condensation. We see, then, that even back then, in the ancient lunar period, the Sun with its beings acted from outside for some time upon the remaining lunar body.

[ 7 ] Now it will be necessary to describe this remaining body a little more closely, for we have undergone part of our development on it. On Saturn there was only the physical body; man had the value of a mineral. On the Sun, human beings rose to the value of a plant, for they had a physical and etheric body. But certain beings remained behind, for they did not ascend with the human-plant existence to the old Sun, but remained at the level of Saturn. These are the precursors of certain animals of today. You see, in relation to its past, the human being of today reaches back to the old Saturn, while it was only on the Sun that the precursors of some of our present-day animals appeared as a second kingdom alongside the human being. For the same reason, because certain beings remained behind, the human being who had worked his way up to a threefold being on the Moon was surrounded by two other kingdoms: by a kingdom that had remained on the moon at the plant stage — the precursors of our present-day animals — and by what was still at the mineral stage on the moon, the precursors of our present-day plants. What is mineral today did not yet exist on the moon; it arose only at the very latest as a separation from the other kingdoms. Of course, anyone who asserts such things knows very well that it is nonsense to speak in today's sense of plants arising without the foundation of a mineral kingdom; but conditions were very different in the past. In fact, on the old moon, humans developed, so to speak, in the animal kingdom, animals in the plant kingdom, and plants in the mineral kingdom, and when the moon separated from the sun, all the kingdoms underwent a shift that happened in the following way.

[ 8 ] If we think of the old moon, then the three kingdoms mentioned above are initially present:

1. the human kingdom — actually the animal kingdom, consisting of the physical, etheric, and astral bodies;
2. the animal kingdom — actually the plant kingdom, consisting of the physical and etheric bodies;
3. the plant kingdom — actually the mineral kingdom, because it has only a physical body.

[ 9 ] Our present mineral kingdom therefore does not yet exist. When the moon and sun separate, the beings and forces of the sun are completely freed from the coarse substances of the moon and can work all the more powerfully. This raises all three kingdoms up one level. What is the human astral body is lifted out of its intimate connection with the physical and etheric bodies, so that if you think of human beings with their physical, etheric, and astral bodies at the beginning of the lunar existence, you will later perceive a significant change: As the sun emerges and begins to shine from outside, the astral body and etheric body are partially liberated. The result is that something arises which you must imagine as follows: Imagine that the human being of today consists of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, and now an external force comes and drives out the astral body and the etheric body; then, for the clairvoyant, your astral body and your etheric body would exist outside of you. But you yourself would be raised half a step higher by the fact that these two bodies are freed from the heaviness of the physical body. And something like this also happened back then. Man was also raised up, he became a being that stands in the middle between today's human beings and today's animals, but which was guided and directed in a spiritual relationship by the exalted solar powers. Similarly, the other two realms were raised a little, so that in the middle of the Moon's development we do not have our present realms, but intermediate realms: a realm of animal-humans, a realm standing between animal and plant, and a plant-mineral realm. And just as our minerals form the solid ground on which we walk, so the beings of the old moon walked on what was the lowest realm of the moon, on the plant-mineral. This basic substance of the moon was not a mineral substance as it is on earth today, but a kind of semi-living being. If you were to imagine something like peat bog or cooked lettuce or cooked spinach, a kind of mush, but alive and bubbling, then you would have some idea of what the basic substance was like at that time. And it was not rocks that protruded from this mass, but formations such as wood, condensed plant matter, horn-like structures; these were what replaced the rocks of today. And to the clairvoyant eye, this appears as if one were walking on a plant-mineral foundation that had undergone a process of condensation, and that is what the rocks are. From this, the animal plants grow, more or less firmly rooted, much more mobile than today; they grow out of the viscous element, and they had a kind of sensation when you touched them. And out of the finest substances arose the animal-human being, who by no means reached down into the coarsest substances, but had his physical body made of the finest substances. And this physical body, which was in a state of constant transformation, looked quite strange; the clairvoyant cannot discover a human head like the one humans have today on the ancient Moon. In the physical body, even though it is still soft and fluid, he discovers only animal-like head forms, and what protrudes from these animal-like head forms is the etheric and astral bodies. To the physical eye, all animal-people had the most diverse forms, reminiscent of animals, but only reminiscent, and only when one rises from physical seeing to astral seeing does one perceive the higher nature of these lunar animal-people. Such is the population of the old moon.

[ 10 ] When we look into the depths of human cultural development, insofar as it is of a spiritual nature, we find in many places that the myths and legends that have been handed down to us are in many ways wiser than our present-day science. And when human beings once again recognize the spiritual foundation of the world, they will recognize a deep wisdom in many myths, legends, and fairy tales, a wisdom deeper than our seemingly advanced science. Let us think once more of the ancient moon, where only the ancient animal plants could thrive, and let us turn our gaze away for a moment from the further development of the moon. Let us be clear that all these moon beings were the precursors of our present human beings. Through a descent, our present mineral kingdom arose from the mineral plants, our present plants arose from the animal plants, and our present animals arose for the most part from the animal-people who remained behind, those who did not advance. Thus we see how our present minerals, our plants, animals, and humans are truly descendants of those ancient moon beings. Nowadays, there are very strange plants that do not thrive in mineral soil, for example mistletoe. It is so strange because, to the clairvoyant eye, it differs greatly from other plants. It shows something of an astral body which, as in the animal body, enters into the mistletoe. Although it has no feelings, it shows something of the outer form of the animal being. This comes from the fact that it belongs to those plant animals of the moon that have been left behind; they cannot now have plants and therefore cannot thrive on mineral soil. They could not progress that far, and so they need other plants into which they can sink. Mistletoe has remained part of the old lunar custom. The ancient ancestors of the European peoples knew this, embodying it first in a wonderful mythological structure. These ancient Germanic and Nordic peoples saw in Loki a force that still belonged to those ancient lunar powers that had found their way from the old lunar scene to our Earth. When the Earth became Earth, it came under the influence of those forces which these ancient peoples symbolized in the god Baldur. He represents all the forces that acted upon the mature Earth beings. However, those beings on our Earth who remained on the lunar stage feel a deep kinship with the god of the moon, Loki. This is the origin of the wonderful legend that once, when the gods were playing, all beings swore an oath that they would not harm Baldur — only the mistletoe did not swear this oath. Why? Because it is not related to the earthly forces embodied in Baldur; it is degenerate, a backward creature of the moon. It can harm the fundamental force of the earth, Baldur. Loki must make use of a being that belongs to him. This legend arose from deep within the secret connections of the world. And when we know that in many respects that which opposes healthy development must serve sick development, then we understand that it was a great, wise intuition of our ancestors that led them to seek particularly healing powers and juices in mistletoe. They knew what we have just discussed; hence the esteem in which mistletoe has always been held. This is an example that shows us how wisdom about the development of the world is hidden in legends and myths.

[ 11 ] Now, because a part of the etheric and astral bodies was, so to speak, withdrawn from the animal human beings on the Moon, the necessity for a change of consciousness already arose on the old Moon. And now we must speak of another development that took place parallel to this. Each of these stages of development on Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth is also a stage in the development of consciousness. On Saturn, consciousness was very dull; it was the first stage. Our consciousness in dreamless sleep, which is what the eternally sleeping plant world has, is already brighter than what humans had on Saturn and can be compared to the consciousness of minerals. It was only on the Sun that man rose to a consciousness like that of plants, and through the incorporation of the astral body on the Moon, his consciousness rose another degree higher, to what we call image consciousness. We can only compare it to our present dream consciousness in a certain respect, for our dreams have meaning only in exceptional cases. But on the moon it was different. The ascending and descending images that appeared to humans there had meaning. When another being approached, he could not perceive its external form and color, but he felt something rising within himself, just as humans do today in dreams; an image of the inner nature of the being arose within him, and depending on the color and character of this image, he knew whether the being was friendly or hostile, whether he should stay or flee.

[ 12 ] But, as already mentioned, there was a change of consciousness on the Moon during the time when the Sun was outside; there were times when consciousness was more lively and times when it was more dull. Today, day and night alternate. Today, human beings enter their physical and etheric bodies in the morning; as a result, the world of external objects and beings appears before them. It becomes light and bright around them because they use their senses. But then, when they go out in the evening with their ego and astral body, they initially have no tools for perception; it becomes dark around them. Thus, the dreamless sleep consciousness that was first given to human beings on the sun alternates with waking consciousness, with earth consciousness. This had already been prepared on the old moon. Even then, the etheric body and the astral body were not continuously separated, but there were times when they sank into the physical body; for the old moon was already moving around the sun, and this rotation caused the human being to be illuminated by the sun at times and not at other times. This caused the etheric body and the astral body to enter and leave the physical body. Of course, the change was not as contrasting as it is today. When human beings emerged on the old moon, when they were illuminated by the forces of the sun, they were in a bright consciousness, in a spiritual consciousness; they perceived the spiritual intensely. And when their etheric and astral bodies sank into the physical body, their consciousness darkened — you see, it was the opposite of today. Thus, on the Moon, in much, much longer periods of time, light and dark states of consciousness alternated, and it was in the dark states of consciousness that what we call fertilization took place without human beings being aware of it. In order to develop the ability to reproduce, to bring about fertilization, to give birth, the higher being of the human being descended into its physical body, and when the process was complete, it ascended again into the higher world. What has developed completely on Earth was prepared gradually. And through the separation of the sun, through its giving stronger power to its beings, human beings and all other beings were able to develop higher. For if the forces of the sun had continued to be inhibited by the old moon, they would not have been able to work so powerfully. Now they were themselves freed from the hindrance of the lunar substances, and as a result the moon advanced so rapidly with all its beings that after a certain time it had reached maturity and was ready to be taken up again by the sun. A state came about in which all the separated world bodies could be taken up again, where they entered together into a spiritual state of rest, which we call pralaya. And then, after this pause, what we can call the first etheric germ of the Earth body emerged again, from which everything later separated again.

[ 13 ] And now we ask ourselves: Where does the physical body on Saturn come from, where does the etheric body on the sun come from, and where does the astral body on the moon come from? — The student of spiritual science does not ask such philosophically clumsy questions as many who believe they are asking philosophical questions. There are people who ask: Where does this or that come from? — And when you answer, they ask further and further, without end. One does this only as long as one does not rise to a spiritual contemplation of the world. Reasonably, one must eventually come to a point with one's questions where the meaning of the question comes to an end. Imagine you find ruts in the road surface. You ask: Where do they come from? The answer is: A car drove over them. Now you can ask further: Where did the car come from? One can answer: It was used by a person who had a specific errand to run. Now, of course, you can ask: Where did the errand come from? But eventually you will reach a point where the questions come to an end, where you stray so far from the object that you enter a completely different realm. If the meaning of the question begins with an idea, then you will only arrive at endless questions if you remain in the abstract. But in concrete observation, you ultimately arrive at spiritual beings, and then you no longer ask: Why do they do that? — Instead, you ask: What are they doing? — To do this, you must first train yourself to recognize the limits of questioning.

[ 14 ] Occult observation tells us that once, when ancient Saturn began to form, certain spiritual beings poured out the basic substance of Saturn, warmth, from their own substance as a sacrifice. They had reached such a stage of maturity that they not only needed nothing as nourishment, but were even able to sacrifice their own substance, to pour it out. These are the Thrones. These Thrones poured out their substance during the old Saturn period, and it is they who, through their sacrifice, formed the basis for the physical human body. Anyone who looks at this physical body occultly on Saturn says: It flowed out of the substance of the Thrones. We see that this physical body has been transformed from stage to stage, has developed higher, but what we have within us is always the transformed substance of the thrones. Then we move on to the old Sun. There the etheric body has joined the physical body. There again are spiritual beings standing beneath the thrones, whom we call the spirits of wisdom, the Kyriotetes. On Saturn, they were not yet ready to let their own essence flow out, but on the sun they were ready, and the substance of the etheric body flowed out of their bodies. Since the time of the sun, we have carried the substance of the spirits of wisdom in our etheric body. On the moon, the astral body joined it. Once again, it is spiritual beings who sacrifice their substance: the spirits of movement, dynameis or powers. And finally, we pass from the moon to the earth; there another being pours its power into us, we attain the I; the I joins the three other bodies. This I is given to us by the spirits who guide cosmic development, by the spirits of form, by the powers or exusiai. We encounter these spirits of form again here: they are the Elohim, who shine their sunlight upon us, and Jehovah, who shapes the human spirit from the moon. Here we have them in their interaction, the spirits of form, who from outside gave man the predisposition for his I.

[ 15 ] Thus we see certain spiritual beings integrating themselves into human development from stage to stage: on Saturn the thrones, on the sun the spirits of wisdom, on the moon the spirits of movement or dynameis, and on the earth the spirits of form: Jehovah and the Elohim. All these beings are those who have given human beings their present shape and form, who have allowed their own essence to flow into them. In the biblical record, we are clearly shown how the essence of one of the spirits of form flowed into the essence of human beings. A profound mystery lies behind what is written in the Torah. Imagine that one of the spirits of the Elohim connected itself with the moon as Jehovah, that from there it worked as a spirit of form, making man what the divine form gives him: God formed man in his own image, he gave him the form of the gods. — It is the spirits of form that gave him the human form, that is, the divine form. The Elohim pour the sun's power down onto the earth in light. The Jehovah God has renounced the outer garment, the outer form of light; as a dark God, he pours himself onto the earth, limiting himself to the time between birth and death. Through the air, which is permeated by light, the spirits of the air join him. So that when we want to form a picture of what flows spiritually and physically from the sun to the earth, we see how the sun's rays are caught by the earth and come to the human being, and how these rays also bring with them what flows to us from the Jehovah spirit: there is added that which lives in the air as spirit. And this moment, when Jehovah pours his power, a piece of the Jehovah deity, into human beings, is referred to in the words of the Bible: “And Jehovah breathed into the man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.”

[ 16 ] We must realize that we must take such words quite literally, that we must read what is really written there. And we are filled with awe when we begin to understand such words; when we comprehend the meaning of this statement, which tells us that after the spirits of wisdom and the spirits of movement poured their essences into human beings on Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, now the spirits of form have also entered into them on Earth. It is this great and powerful moment that is expressed in the biblical words.

[ 17 ] And now we will see how these Elohim and Jehovah worked together with the Luciferic entities through the Atlantean period and into our time.