The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] We have now learned about significant developmental processes in the human organism. We have traced this organism from its origin to the moment when the moon separated from the earth. When we say “moment,” we are of course speaking in an imprecise sense, for these processes take quite long periods of time. From the first moment when the moon began to show signs of departing until the last moment when it had completely detached itself, long periods of time elapsed, and many things continued to develop during that time. However, we have considered the human being approximately up to the departure of the moon. We have understood this form of the human being, the form which, towards the lower part, approximately from the middle of the human body, from about the height of the hips, already showed a configuration not entirely dissimilar to that of today. With today's eyes, one would have been able to see this body, albeit as soft parts, while the upper parts would have been visible only to clairvoyant consciousness. We have already pointed out how legend, religion, and art have preserved something of the nature of human beings at that time in the centaur. And in the individual parts of the body, we have come to recognize human limbs, which gradually developed into feet, lower legs, knees, and upper legs, which at that time represented to us the animal forms of our earth, animal forms that had remained at a certain stage of development, but which humans had surpassed. Now let us understand this very clearly.

[ 2 ] In ancient times, when the sun first rose, no animal forms had yet come into being. When the sun rose, the highest form of animals at that time was a kind of animal that stood at the level of today's fish. When it is said that human feet corresponded to this fish form, and when we have seen the feet in connection with the fish, what does that actually mean? It means that at that time, forms remained behind that swam around like fish in the watery earth, and that during that time, only the feet were physically perceptible to humans. Everything else existed only in a fine etheric form. What has been described as the chalice shape or flower shape, the luminous organ, was entirely etheric, a translucent air form, and only the lowest part of the human being was such that it actually penetrated the watery earth like the fish that remained behind. After that, there were higher animals, which are represented in the image of the water man, the human being who retained his body visible up to the lower leg. The human being thus developed in such a way that at each stage of his existence he left behind certain animal forms, which he gradually outgrew.

[ 3 ] And when the moon began to recede, man had reached the point where he had already physically developed the lower half, the lower nature, but the upper nature was still completely capable of development. Then we saw how that which we have come to know in the effect of moonlight in the form that the Egyptians called Osiris intervenes from the moon, how it can influence human beings through the different configurations of the moon, and how that which is the most important structure of the upper body, the nerves that are the initiators of the present upper body, is integrated from the moon. The nerves that emanate from the spinal cord formed the upper body. Through the sounds that Osiris-Apollo plays on the human lyre, the middle of the human being, the middle of the hips, is formed first. Everything that had to remain at this point, beyond which the human being stepped, remained in the further development of the amphibious form.

[ 4 ] As long as the moon was connected to the earth, it slowed down human development to a greater or lesser extent. The form of fish was still connected to the sun, which is why healthy people today have certain feelings toward fish. Think about how happy it can make a person to see a beautiful, shiny fish body, to see beautiful, luminous aquatic animals, how these forms can delight us, and let us remember how humans feel a sense of antipathy when they see creatures that are higher than fish, but which crawl and wriggle around as amphibians, frogs, toads, and snakes. Admittedly, today's amphibians are forms that have completely degenerated from those of that time, but humans once had such forms in their lower physicality. As long as humans only had their lower physicality, up to the hips, they were only a kind of lindworm; it was only later, when the upper body took shape, that they formed the human lower body. We can say that the fish form reflects the level at which humans stood through the forces they still possessed when the sun was still united with the earth; until the sun emerged, humans stood at the level of the fish.

[ 5 ] Now the great beings, the leaders of evolution, went out to form their sun, only to reunite with the earth at a much later time. And one of the spirits who went out with it, the highest of the guiding sun spirits, is Christ. Here we stand before an event that fills us with a deep sense of awe when we learn that until then, human beings were united with the being who once left the earth with the sun as the noblest spirit. It was felt that the fish form could once characterize the time when the sun left the earth and then the formation by Christ himself. In the past, human beings were connected to the sun in the earth, and when it left, they saw the form they owed to the sun spirits preserved in the fish form. As they moved on, the sun spirits were no longer with them. Christ left the earth at the time when man had the form of a fish. This form is now preserved by the initiates of the early Christian development. In the Roman catacombs, this fish symbol was present as the symbol of Christ, and it was intended to remind people of the great cosmic event of the development at the time when Christ was still united with them in the earth. Man had progressed to the fish form when the sun separated: the first Christians perceived the reference to the human Christ form in the fish symbol as something immensely profound. How far removed is such a significant sign, which we see as a symbol of a cosmic epoch of development, from the external interpretations that are often given. These were true symbols that referred to spiritual, higher realities. They did not merely “mean” something to the first Christians. Such a symbol is an image of this or that which can actually be seen in the spiritual world, and no symbol is correctly interpreted until one can point to what can be seen for it in the spiritual world. All speculation has at most a preparatory purpose; the expression “it means” is not yet accurate, but the symbol is only truly recognized when one shows that it represents a spiritual fact.

[ 6 ] Now let us continue with the development of humanity. Human beings have taken on the most diverse forms, and when they had developed to hip height, they were at their ugliest in their physical form. This form that human beings had at that time has been preserved in a decadent form in the snake. The time when man had reached the amphibious form, when the moon was still within the earth, was a time of shame and corruption in the development of humanity. If the moon had not left the earth at that time, the human race would have fallen into a terrible fate, and would have sunk more and more into the form of the hideous and evil. Therefore, the soul feeling that the naive, unspoiled mind has toward the snake, which retains the form in which man stood at his lowest point, this feeling of antipathy is something that is fully justified. It is precisely the unspoiled mind, which does not say that there is nothing ugly in nature, that feels revulsion toward the serpent because it is the document of human shame. This is not meant in a moral sense, but points to the lowest point in the development of humanity.

[ 7 ] Now man had to rise above this low point. He could only do this by leaving behind the animal form and by beginning to condense his spiritual, higher part. We have seen that all the nobler parts could develop only through the influence of the Isis and Osiris forces. In order for the Osiris forces to work in him, in order for the nobler part to develop, something very important had to happen first: the upper part of the human being had to find a way to bring the spinal cord from a horizontal position into a vertical position. All this happened through the influence of Isis and Osiris. From stage to stage, human beings were guided by the sun and moon, which kept themselves in balance. When human beings had become half physical, the sun and moon were in balance; that is why the middle of the hips is called the balance. At that time, the sun was also in the sign of Libra.

[ 8 ] Now, one must not imagine — this must be expressly noted — that after the sun had been in the sign of Scorpio and then in the sign of Libra, the hips would have developed immediately afterwards. Then one would imagine the course of development to be much too rapid. The sun passes through the entire zodiac in a period of 25,920 years. The sun once rose in Aries in the spring, previously in the sign of Taurus. The vernal equinox moved further and further; the sun traversed the constellation of Taurus with its vernal equinox, and so on. Around 747 BC, the sun re-entered Aries; in our time, it rises in the constellation of Pisces in the spring. Now, the time during which the sun passes through a constellation does mean something, but such a period would not be sufficient for the change that had to take place in order for human beings to progress from sexuality under the sign of Scorpio to the height of hip development under the sign of Libra.

[ 9 ] It would be wrong to think that this happens through the passage of the sun. The sun goes once around the entire zodiac, and only after this entire cycle does progress occur. In earlier times, it had to go around more often before progress could occur. Therefore, the well-known time calculations of the post-Atlantean epoch cannot be applied to earlier epochs. The sun had to go around completely, in earlier times even several times, before development moved forward a little. For those members that needed more development, the time took longer. — Through this development, the human being now rises higher and higher. The next stage, where what are called the lower members of the human trunk were formed, is designated by the sign of Virgo.

[ 10 ] We will understand this development best if we realize that while human beings are becoming more and more human, animal beings remain at certain stages. It has already been said that human beings also developed their lungs, heart, and larynx through the influence of the moon's forces. I have also shown how Osiris and Isis are involved in this. Now we must be clear that the higher organs of the human being, such as the heart, lungs, larynx, and so on, that all these members could only develop through the higher members of the human being—the etheric body, the astral body, and also the I, as the actual spiritual members of the human being—already participating in a certain way. From the point of view reached in Libra, these higher members worked together much more than in previous epochs. This is why the most diverse forms could arise. For example, the etheric body could work particularly strongly, or the astral body, or even the I. Yes, it could also happen that the physical body had a preponderance over the other three members. This led to the formation of four types of human beings. A number of people developed who had particularly developed their physical body. Then there were people who had been shaped by their etheric body, and also people whose astral nature predominated. There were also ego-people, pronounced ego-people. Thus, what was predominant in each person was manifested in them. |

[ 11 ] In ancient times, when these four forms arose, one would have encountered grotesque figures, and the clairvoyant would then discover what was present in the different types. There are depictions, albeit less public, in which the memory of this has been preserved. For example, in people whose physical nature was particularly strong and had an effect on the upper parts, this was expressed in their upper part as a mark. Something then formed that was completely adapted to the lower form of education, and through what was active there, the figure emerged that we see captured in the apocalyptic image of the bull; not a modern bull, which is a decadent form. What was predominantly determined by the physical body at a certain time remained at the stage of bull nature. This is represented in the bull and in everything that belongs to this animal species: cows, cattle, and so on.

[ 12 ] The group of people in whom the physical body was not so strongly developed, but rather the etheric body, in whom everything that one might call the parts of the trunk more inclined toward the heart became strong, this human stage is also preserved in animal nature. This stage, which humans transcended, is preserved in the lion. The lion preserves within itself the type that developed from the group of humans in whom the etheric body was intensely active.

[ 13 ] That stage of humanity in which the astral body overwhelmed the etheric body and the physical body has been preserved for us—admittedly in a degenerate form—in the mobile bird species and is depicted in the Apocalypse in the image of the eagle. The predominant astrality has been cast off here; it rose from the ground as birdhood.

[ 14 ] And where the ego became strong, a being developed that can truly be called a union of the three other natures, because the ego harmonized all three members. In this group, the clairvoyant indeed has before him what is captured in the sphinx, where the sphinx has the distinctive body of a lion, then the wings of an eagle, but also something bull-like — in the oldest representations of the sphinx, there was even a reptilian tail, which points to the ancient reptilian form — and in front we have the human form, which harmonizes the other parts.

[ 15 ] These are the four types in which, however, the human element predominates in the Atlantean era, in that only gradually, with ever greater unity, did the human form emerge from the eagle-like, lion-like, and bovine characteristics, harmonizing these natures within itself. They formed into one to become the complete human form, and this gradually transformed into the form that existed in the middle of Atlantis.

[ 16 ] Something else happened during all these processes. We imagine that four different elements, four forms in the human being, merged harmoniously, so to speak. One is in the physical body, in the nature of the bull: these are the predominant forces that formed up to the evolutionary epoch of Libra; then we have the nature of the lion in the etheric body; then in the astral body, in the predominant forces of the astral, the nature of the eagle or vulture, and finally the predominant forces of the ego, the actual human nature. One of these four elements had gained the upper hand in individual beings. This gave rise to the four types. But other combinations could also be found. For example, the physical body, the astral body, and the ego could rule equally and have the upper hand over the etheric body. This is a special type of humanity. Then there were beings in whom the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego had the upper hand, while the physical body was less developed, so that we have such people in whom the higher members have the upper hand over the physical body. Those people in whom the physical body, astral body, and ego had the upper hand are the physical ancestors of today's men, and those people in whom the etheric body, astral body, and ego had the upper hand are the physical ancestors of today's women. The other types disappeared more and more, and only these two remained and developed into the male and female forms.

[ 17 ] How was it possible that these two forms gradually developed? This happened again through the different types of influence from the Isis and Osiris forces.

[ 18 ] We have seen that during the new moon phases, when the moon is dark, the Isis principle is characterized, but that Osiris is characterized during the bright full moon phases. Isis and Osiris are spiritual beings on the moon, but we find their deeds on earth. We find them on earth because through these deeds the human race was divided into two sexes. The female ancestors of humans were formed through the influence of Osiris, the ancestors of men were formed through the influence of Isis. The influence of Isis and Osiris on humanity occurs through the nerve strands, through whose action humanity is formed into a male and a female part. This is represented in the legend by Isis searching for Osiris; the male and the female seek each other on Earth. We see again and again that these legends conceal wonderful processes of cosmic development.

[ 19 ] Only when the balance was tipped did the differentiations that we call male and female gradually develop in the upper members of the human being. Human beings remained unisexual for much longer than animals. What had long since happened to other animals only now began to happen to human beings. There was a time when there was, so to speak, a uniform human form, in which there was nothing of the mode of reproduction that later developed, in which human nature still represented both sexes in one being. “And God created man male and female,” it says in the Bible, not “a little man and a little woman.” He created both in one. The worst possible translation is to say that he created “a little man and a little woman.” For that makes no sense in relation to the actual facts.

[ 20 ] Thus we look back to a time when human nature was still one, when every human being gave birth as a virgin. The Egyptian tradition, based on the observations of the initiated, presents this stage of human development to us. I have already pointed out that the older representations of Isis are as follows: Isis nourishes Horus, but behind her stands a second Isis with vulture wings, an Isis who hands Horus the cross, indicating that human beings originate from a time when these types were still separate, so that later the other astral being also immersed itself in human beings. This second Isis indicates how the astral element once prevailed. What was later united with the human form is represented here behind the mother as the astral figure, which would have had vulture wings if it had followed only the astrality. But the time when the etheric body predominated is represented behind it in a third, lion-headed Isis. This threefold Isis is presented to us from deep insight.

[ 21 ] From this point of view, however, we will also understand something else: namely, that there must have been a transition period from sexual unity to sexual separation, that there may indeed have been a certain intermediate state between that virgin reproduction in which fertilization occurred as a result of the forces living in the earth, which were at the same time the fertilizing substances, and the other type of bisexual reproduction. This two-sex reproduction did not fully develop until the middle of the Atlantean epoch. Before that, there was an intermediate stage. During this intermediate stage, a change in consciousness took place at a certain epoch. Human beings underwent a change of consciousness over much longer periods than today. This was a time when consciousness was particularly strong, when human beings experienced themselves as spiritual beings among their spiritual companions during the night. Daytime consciousness, on the other hand, was weak. This state of consciousness changed with another period, when the consciousness that human beings have when they are in the physical body became strong, and the soul life became weaker when human beings left the physical plane at night. Now there were times in human evolution when we must see a transitional stage. At that time, consciousness of the physical world was still subdued. And it was in this subdued state of consciousness that fertilization took place. In times of subdued consciousness, when humans stepped out of the physical world into the spiritual world, fertilization took place, and humans only noticed it through a symbolic dream act. In a delicate, noble way, they felt that fertilization had taken place in their sleep, and only a delicate, wondrous “dream,” such as a person throwing a stone and the stone falling into the earth and then a flower emerging from the earth, was in the consciousness of human beings.

[ 22 ] At this time, we must be particularly interested in the fact that those who had already reached a later stage were also taken into consideration. When we say that certain beings remained at the Taurus stage, others at the Leo stage, others at the Eagle stage, and so on, what does that mean? It means that if these beings had been able to wait and had wanted to develop their full love for the physical world much later, they would have become human beings. If the lion had not wanted to enter the earthly sphere too early, it would have become human, as would the other animals that had split off by then. Let us put it another way: everything that was human at the time when the lion was formed said either: No, I do not want to take in the lower substances yet, I do not want to descend into physical humanity — or: I want to descend; I want what has been developed to become reality.

[ 23 ] So we imagine two beings; one remains above in the etheric realm and reaches down to the earth only in its earthly parts, while the other strives to descend completely to the earth. The latter perhaps became the lion, the former became human.

[ 24 ] Just as the animals remained where they were, so too did humans. Those who became human too early were not the best; the better ones were able to wait. They remained there for a long time, not descending to earth to consciously perform the act of fertilization; they remained in the state of knowledge where the act of fertilization was a dream. These humans lived, as they say, in paradise. And the humans who descended to earth earliest would be found with particularly strongly developed physicality, with raw, brutal facial expressions, while we would find the humans who first wanted to develop the nobler parts in a much more human form.

[ 25 ] What has now been described has been preserved in a wondrous legend and a ritual. The ritual mentioned by Tacitus is well known: the legend of the goddess Nerthus or Hertha, who every year descends into the waves of the sea in a chariot. Those who pull her must be killed. Nerthus was understood, as one might understand it, as some phantom created out of the imagination, as some goddess who was said to have been worshipped on some island. The site of Nerthus was believed to be the Hertha Lake on Rügen. There, people believed they had found the place where the chariot had been submerged. A strange fantasy. The name Lake Hertha is a completely new invention. It used to be called the Black Lake because of its color, and no one thought of calling it Lake Hertha and associating it with the goddess. In truth, there is much more to this legend. Nerthus is the transitional stage from virgin fertilization to later human reproduction. Nerthus, who submerges into a twilight consciousness, perceives only a faint reflection of this when she is immersed in the sea of passion, which is only a delicate, symbolic act. But those who had descended at a time when higher humanity still felt this way had already lost their original naivety; they already saw this act and were lost to higher human consciousness; they were worthy of death.

[ 26 ] The memory of this prehistoric event was preserved in ritual form in many parts of Europe. At certain times, a ceremony was performed during commemorative festivals. This involved the chariot bearing the image of Nerthus, which was submerged into the sea of passion. And there was even a cruel custom: those who were permitted to serve, who had to pull the chariot, who were allowed to witness it—they had to be slaves and were killed during the ritual, as a sign that it was mortal humanity that witnessed this act. Only the priests who were initiated were allowed to attend the ceremony unharmed. Thus, we see from this example that in those times, when what has been recounted here was known in certain regions, the cult of Nerthus existed in those regions. In these regions, there was a consciousness that shaped this legend and the rite. Thus humanity developed through the most manifold forms, and thus what are real facts are depicted in the images. It has already been said that such images are not meant to be allegories, but that their content stands in relation to the real facts. Such images appeared like dream images. Thus the Osiris-ritual was also first dreamed before the student truly beheld the fact of human evolution. And only that which prepares one for real seeing is, in the occult sense, a symbol. A symbol is a depiction of real processes in images. And what the effect of these depictions was will be discussed in the next lecture.