The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] After spending the last eight days familiarizing ourselves with what is expressed in very specific everyday details of a person's inner life, in laughter and tears, today we will familiarize ourselves with conditions in our immediate and wider environment, on which this inner life of the human being, and thus the entire development of the human being, depends in a certain way. Human studies in the broadest sense have been what we have been doing here this winter in the branch lectures, and human studies in the most diverse fields will continue to be what we will be concerned with. If you take a brief look at your knowledge of earthly conditions, even a relatively superficial observation will tell you that human beings take on different forms in different parts of the world, in different regions of our earth. The external physical characteristics differ according to the different regions of our earth. Remember how there are “races,” the black, red, yellow, and white races, and how these races are originally linked to certain regions of our earth.^{1See Special Note regarding Rudolf Steiner's use of the term ‘race’.} You will find this confirmed if you look back on your knowledge of history, whether in relation to what is taught in schools today from a purely physical and material perspective, or in relation to what we have already learned through anthroposophical science itself. We look back into the distant past and see how the human soul, and actually also the human body, has unfolded in the various epochs of Earth's development. In the field of spiritual science, we have looked back to ancient India, ancient Persia, Egypt, and so on. We have seen how the individual abilities that humanity possesses today gradually blossomed. All of this already gives you an idea of how external conditions are connected with the development of the inner human being. Now let us ask ourselves: if the present conditions on our earth already bring about such human diversity, what must have been brought about in human beings since the beginning of our earth's development, when the earth's development actually began after it had passed through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages? We have described various aspects of this. But we will now look at what we have to describe today from a different point of view. For it is precisely by looking at things from new points of view that we come to know the conditions of the human being.

[ 2 ] When this Earth was at the beginning of its development, it was, as you know, still one body with the Sun and the Moon. At that time, therefore, the conditions within our entire development must have been completely different. How different must the human being have been who developed within our Earth's evolution when the Earth was still connected to the Sun; and how different must the human being have become when first the Sun and then the Moon separated from the Earth! Now we know that the time after the sun and moon separated from the earth is also the time of the so-called Lemurian development, in which human beings basically began, in a very rudimentary form, to take on a shape that was somewhat similar to their present form. We have often expressed this by saying that it was actually only then that man descended from higher regions to the earth. When the sun was still connected to the earth, man was indeed in a physical body, but not in one like today. At that time, they were in a physical body similar to what you would imagine if humans today did not stand with their feet on the Earth but rose up into the air, and if they had no bones but still belonged to the air and water regions, whereby we must imagine the water dissolved in the air. They would be like transparent beings in the atmosphere surrounding the earth. The human eye today would not be able to distinguish these people from their surroundings, just as the human eye today cannot distinguish certain sea creatures from their surroundings because they basically look just like their surroundings. One can imagine such a human being as a creature darting through the air. Only after the separation of the sun and moon did humans become as we know them today. What was the condition that allowed humans to develop into what they are today? It was necessary for the sun's energy to act on the Earth from outside rather than from within. That was the purpose of the separation of the sun and the moon, so that these two celestial bodies could send their forces, like the sun its light, to the earth from outside. Only in this way could humans acquire their present form, because they were not illuminated by the light of the sun from below, from the center of the world body, but from the side. Imagine, if we were to accept such a hypothesis, that the moon would fall back to the earth today, that the sun would reunite with the earth: then, if human beings wanted to continue to exist, they would have to surround themselves again with a body that was airy as it was then; they would have to be able to behave like a flitting creature in the environment in which they are now at home. Thus, humans owe their present existence to the external radiation of the sun and moon. Let us disregard all other forces for the moment.

[ 3 ] But the sun and moon have different effects from outside. How different is the effect of the sun in the region of the North Pole and how different at the equator. This gives us a picture of enormous differences that made sense from the moment the sun began to shine on the earth from outside. You know, the further we go toward the North Pole, the more different the conditions are in terms of winter and summer. And at the North Pole, for example, there is literally half a year of daylight and half a year of night. If you consider these conditions, it will become clear to you what spiritual science has to say about these things. It says that, in the Lemurian epoch, the conditions around the North Pole were most similar to those that existed on Earth when the sun and moon were still united with it. Today, of course, these conditions have changed completely. But even today, it is still true in a certain sense that around the North Pole the strongest influence from the center of the Earth on its surface is present, and that the influences of the sun and moon are the weakest there. What has become apparent since the Lemurian epoch, namely that radiation from outside has gained such a great influence, has been least effective around the North Pole, so that the effect of the Earth's interior on the surface and on everything that lives on the surface is greatest around the North Pole. In contrast, the influence of the sun and moon is strongest around the equator. This was already the case in Lemurian times. From the Akashic Records, we can ascertain that conditions on Earth have become completely new as a result of the separation of the sun and moon. However, this also gave rise to a very specific effect. Something arose that is of fundamental importance for the entire development of the Earth. For this very reason, we can say that it was least possible for human beings to descend around the North Pole and incarnate in a physical human form in which they could find their best expression. Therefore, in the ancient Lemurian era, the North Pole of the Earth was the gathering place for those beings who, if I may express it thus, did not yet claim the right to descend very deeply onto the Earth, but preferred to remain above in the regions where the air was filled with water vapor. So, around the North Pole in Lemurian times, we had a kind of spirit race that did not care much about the physical bodies swarming around down on Earth, a race that, in spiritual terms, consisted of transparent and therefore not actually visible forms to the present-day eye, which were highly developed as such, but in relation to their physical forms showed a low level of humanity. They lived in an etheric body, they were more ethereal beings and had a loose connection to the primitive bodies that were developing down on Earth and did not yet have any particular density. These bodies were too dependent on the earth, and were used only to a very small extent by the spiritually higher beings as their shells. If, therefore, a person today with his sensory powers of perception had been able to visit the North Pole at the time of the Lemurians, he would have said something like this about the population there: What a strange population! The people are actually quite imperfectly formed in terms of their physical bodies, but there must be something special about them, because the population is skilled and intelligent; it is as if they were being directed from above by strings! Yes, that was how it was there, because the actual human being did not descend to the surface of the earth. That is why the people around the North Pole at that time were highly ethereal beings with highly developed etheric bodies but poorly developed physical bodies, beings who, so to speak, could visualize all the wisdom of the world in their etheric bodies through high clairvoyant powers, who looked out at the starry sky and understood what beings animated the space in the worlds. But their physical bodies were sleepy, one might almost say. Nevertheless, because they were directed from above as if by strings, they performed very intelligent deeds.

[ 4 ] In contrast, it was different in the equatorial regions. There, the influence of the sun and moon from outside became more and more active. The air was, so to speak, permeated and warmed by the sun's rays. All the phenomena that took place in the air region became dependent on the sun and moon. And the result was that in these regions, especially in ancient Lemuria, human beings descended deepest into their physical bodies, so that the etheric bodies permeated the physical bodies most deeply. Again, a person today with sensory eyes would accept these beings as the most highly developed physical human forms, while they would regard the northern peoples as less developed. Yet another difference arose that is particularly significant.

[ 5 ] Where the sun had the least influence, people developed in such a way that, basically, they all looked alike over vast areas. For of those beings that did not descend and were still etheric, one etheric being always belonged to many down below. There were group souls up there, while the souls around the equator were much more individual souls, much more each one in its own body. Thus, in the Lemurian era, the inhabitants of the regions we see today around the North Pole were at the highest conceivable degree of group soulhood. A whole number of people looked up to their group soul. And if we consider these group souls as souls, they were much more highly developed than the souls that moved into physical bodies in the Lemurian period in the equatorial regions. We can therefore say that around the North Pole there lived a population that we must actually seek in the air regions, as in a kind of paradise, which had not yet descended to Earth. Compare what we have understood as a necessary consequence of what we have already learned with what you encounter here and there in theosophical literature: that those higher beings who were once the teachers of humanity descended from a cold northern region! We have now literally found them, the group souls around the North Pole. If they wanted to become teachers of those who were lower souls and entered more into physical bodies, they also had to descend further and confront the hellish forces of the Lemurian epoch in their etheric bodies, or they had to sacrifice themselves and take on the physical form of the Lemurian population.

[ 6 ] If we had traveled in Lemurian times from the equator to the North Pole, we would have found a spiritualization of the Earth's population. During this time, we can distinguish between two types of people: one type that remained spiritual, for whom their earthly bodies were basically just an addition to their spiritual essence, and another type that had already descended into the material, physical world. What would have happened if there had been no change in the Earth's development? Then the best souls of the polar countries would not have been able to enter into physical bodies at all. And on the other hand, the population around the equator would have more or less fallen into ruin. Because they had descended into physical bodies too early, they fell into precisely those vices and bad habits that led to the downfall of Lemuria. The result was that the best part of the population emigrated to those regions that lay between the equator and the northern countries. For in Lemurian times, the most promising members of humanity were to be found in the intermediate lands between the equator and the North Pole. The human bodies that developed best, and which could then once again become the carriers of the best human souls, were found in those regions of ancient Atlantis that lay in what is now called the temperate zone.

[ 7 ] Now, remnants remain from all the different stages of development, so to speak, and remnants also remain from these ancient times. Nothing remains of what we call the Lemurian population of the earth, that peculiar population of the north, which had highly developed etheric bodies and poorly developed physical bodies, and that other equatorial population, which had highly developed physical bodies and poorly developed etheric bodies. They have perished. For these bodies were such that we cannot even find the remains; the substance was still so soft that there can be no question of remains. - Among their descendants in Atlantis, the seed of the ego, of self-consciousness, which had already been present since the ancient Lemurian time, came out more and more and developed more and more on Earth. If the people had not moved to Atlantis in large numbers, there could not have been such a lively development of the ego. For the Lemurian population would have gradually perished, they would have succumbed to all passions, and the best souls of the North would not have descended to Earth at all, because they would not have been able to find suitable bodies. The imperfect bodies of earlier times would not have offered them the opportunity to develop a strong sense of self within their physicality. As a result of the better parts of the Lemurian population emigrating to Atlantis, the human body was transformed into a form that enabled it to become the vehicle of self-consciousness in the right measure. And in the areas of today's temperate zone, the human body only gradually attained this form. For during these periods of development, the human body was still undergoing transformation. In the Atlantean era, the human body was not yet fixed in the forms we know today, but rather it was still the case that spiritually significant, highly developed people of that time were physically small, little people. On the other hand, those who were not very significant spiritually had a hugely developed physical body in the Atlantean era. And when you encountered such a giant at that time, you could say to yourself: He is not on a very high level of spirituality, because he has run into his body with his whole being! Everything contained in the legends about “giants” is based entirely on knowledge of the truth. If, therefore, the Germanic legends contain a real memory of those times, we feel, from a spiritual scientific point of view, that it is entirely correct that the giants are stupid and that the dwarves are actually very clever. This is based entirely on the fact that it could be said of the Atlantean population: There are little people, there is great intelligence at home; there, on the other hand, is a great race of people, and they are all stupid! Where human intelligence had entered the flesh, not much remained spiritually. So physical size was an expression of the fact that spirituality could not be retained. In a certain sense, the body was still quite capable of transformation at that time. Especially at the time when Atlantis began to sink, there was a great difference between people who were good in their soul qualities and who were a small race of people, compared to the giant figures who were vicious and in whom everything had gone into the flesh. You can even find echoes of this fact in the Bible, if you look for them.

[ 8 ] So we see how the human body in the Atlantean era was still able to form itself according to spiritual qualities. That is why it was able to take on the form that enabled it to construct all the organs, the heart, the brain, and so on, in such a way that they became the expression of an actual I-being, of a self-conscious being. Now, however, these abilities and also these characteristics developed to the most varied degrees. There were people who were just right in terms of their inner life, just normal, who had not raised their egoism to too great a height and had not developed their sense of self in a base way. In them, devotion to the outer world and the sense of self were in balance. Such people were scattered everywhere. But these were the ones with whom the Atlantean initiates could do the most. On the other hand, there were other people who had developed a terribly strong sense of self, much too early, of course, because people were not yet ready to form an instrument in their bodies for a strongly developed sense of self. The body was, so to speak, hardened in egoism, and it was impossible for it to develop beyond a certain point. Other peoples, on the other hand, had not reached a certain normal sense of self because they were more easily influenced by the outside world than they should have been; these were peoples who were completely devoted to the outside world. So normal people were best suited for the initiates as material for future development, and they were also the ones whom the great sun initiate, the Manu, gathered around him as the most developable people. Those peoples in whom the ego drive was too strongly developed and permeated the whole human being from within, imprinting on them egoism and egotism, gradually migrated to the West, and this became the population that appears in its last remnants as the Indian population of America. The people who had developed too little sense of self migrated to the east, and the remnants of these people became the subsequent Negro population of Africa. This becomes apparent even in physical characteristics when one considers things from a spiritual scientific perspective. When a person's inner life is fully expressed in their physiognomy, in their physical appearance, then their outer appearance is permeated, as it were, with the color of their inner life. The color of egoism, however, is red, copper red, or even yellowish brown. Therefore, even today, excessive egoism resulting from some kind of wounded pride can still make people turn yellow with anger, so to speak, from within. These are phenomena that are definitely related: the copper color of those peoples who migrated to the West, and the yellow color of people who are “full of bile,” as they say, whose inner nature is therefore expressed in their skin. But those people who had developed their ego too weakly, who were too exposed to the effects of the sun, were like plants: they deposited too many carbon-like components under their skin and turned black. That is why Negroes are black. So, on the one hand, east of Atlantis, in the black Negro population, and on the other hand, west of Atlantis, in the copper-red peoples, we have remnants of such people who had not developed their sense of self to a normal degree. The normal people were the easiest to work with. They were therefore chosen to spread from the well-known places in Asia to the various other areas.

[ 9 ] Now, of course, there were all sorts of intermediate stages in this development, ranging from the extreme to the very extreme, among the small group that Manu gathered around him. These also came to the fore, of course. Some of these intermediate stages were extremely suitable for the further development of Earth's culture. For example, during the migration from west to east, a population remained in the European regions that had developed a strong sense of self but was at the same time not easily influenced by its surroundings. Imagine what a peculiar mixture this must have produced in Europe. Those who migrated eastward and became the black population were strongly influenced by the outside world, especially by the effect of the sun, precisely because they had little sense of self. But now, at least in this direction, peoples with a strong sense of self migrated to the same areas. This is a population that had, so to speak, preferred the eastern direction to the western. This mitigated the copper-red color they would have acquired if they had moved westward. And from them sprang that population which had a strong sense of self that balanced with their devotion to the outside world. This is the population of Europe, of which we were able to say in our last public lecture that a strong sense of personality was essential to them from the beginning.

[ 10 ] Thus we see how the external environment affects the inner conditions of human beings and how the Earth, through the different positions in which its surface parts are exposed to the sun's rays, gave rise to the most diverse degrees of soul development. Depending on where the souls turned at that time, they found the most diverse possibilities for undergoing their development in the physical body. It is very important that we consider the connection between the influence of the sun on the earth and the development of humanity. If you follow these things with me in detail into later times, you will see how much can be explained by the fact that the most diverse shades appeared. For example, we have the part of the population that remained in Europe, which was as I have just described, and which was dependent on itself until later times. They did not concern themselves with others, but the part that then turned away from this population to the areas that were already settled by the population that had become dark in various degrees, and then mixed with them, now also had all possible degrees of the other skin color. Look at these colors, starting with the Negroes and going to the yellow population found in Asia. That is why you have bodies there that are in turn shells for the most diverse souls, starting with the completely passive Negro soul, which is completely devoted to its surroundings, to its external physique, up to the other stages of passive souls in the most diverse regions of Asia.

[ 11 ] Many aspects of the development of Asian and African peoples will now become clear to you in their peculiarities: they represent mixtures of devotion to the environment and an outwardly pronounced sense of self. So that we basically have two groups of populations representing different mixtures: on European soil, those who formed the basis of the white population, who had developed the strongest sense of personality, but did not turn to where the sense of personality permeated the whole body, but where the sense of self became more internalized. That is why in Western Asia, and partly also in North Africa and in European regions in earlier times, you have a population that has a strong sense of self internally, but externally, on the whole, does not lose itself in its surroundings; they are internally strong and stable natures, but have not imprinted this inner character on their outer physicality. In contrast, in Asia we have populations that are passive, devoted natures, in whom the passive is expressed to a higher degree. This makes the population dreamy, and the etheric body penetrates deeply into the physical body. This is the fundamental difference between the European and Asian populations.

[ 12 ] Wedged in the middle was Manu with his normal people. He had to give the right culture to every single shade of this population. He had to shade the laws and teachings in such a way as to suit the external conditions of the population. And so we see how the population in Asia is given a teaching that is designed to satisfy them in their passivity, in their devotion. It is not the “I” that is emphasized by this Asian-African population. The Negro would not emphasize the “I” at all. When this population looked up to the divine, it said: I do not find my innermost being within myself, but I find it in Brahman, by flowing out of myself, by surrendering myself to the universe!

[ 13 ] Such a teaching would not have been understood in Europe. Europe was far too oriented toward the North Pole, and a certain similarity remains between the countries, even through the different ages. Let us remember that we once found populations around the North Pole that did not descend into their physical bodies, whose physical bodies were, in a sense, even atrophied. Yes, the population of Europe had not yet descended completely into their physical bodies. They internalized their sense of personality. And we would find this the further we go back into the ancient times of Europe. Imagine how this internalized sense of personality was preserved into later times, when people perhaps no longer understood the reason for it. Someone who belonged to the East would have said: I unite myself with the one, the all-encompassing Brahman! You unite yourself with Brahman! The other unites himself with Brahman, the fiftieth, the hundredth, they all unite themselves with the one Brahman! - With what did the European unite himself when he had to acknowledge it as something that was valid in his view? He united himself with the one Valkyrie, with the one higher soul. And the Valkyrie is there for everyone, so to speak, at the moment of death. Everything is individual, everything is personal. And it was only at the border between the two areas that something like the Moses-Christ religion could arise. It could only fall into the middle, between the Orient and the Occident. And while it could not take root in the East, where the concept of God already existed as a unified concept, but at a previous stage, it was able to establish itself as a concept of a personal God, who is already Yahweh and who is Christ, among those peoples who already had a sense of personality within themselves. Therefore, it spread westward, and we see how it was able to find understanding here as the idea of a personally conceived God. That is why we see it becoming almost a necessity in this belt. The sense of personality was there, but it was still internal, spiritual, just as in the ancient Lemurians everything was still spiritual and the physical was little developed. Here, the physical was now developed, but the personal, to which man attached the greatest value, was internal; and through the internal he also wanted to conquer the external. Therefore, it was there that people best understood the God who had the most inner life in his outer life, the Christ. In Europe, everything was prepared for the Christ. And because these were areas where people had not yet completely descended to the earthly stage and therefore something like the last remnants of spiritual perception still existed, something had also remained of the ability to see spiritual beings, of the ancient European clairvoyance.

[ 14 ] This ancient European clairvoyance had also led to the existence throughout Europe, and even into Asia, of an ancient conception of God, about which today's scholarship will perhaps only learn something when it discovers it in the legends of remote areas of Siberia. A strange term appears, long before the development of Christianity, when nothing was known about what was happening down below, that is, about what is described in the Old Testament, about Greek-Roman development, about Oriental development. A strange idea emerges there, which led to a name that has now largely disappeared: the “Ongod”; and the Ongod is a name that still echoes today, so to speak, in the idea of the “one God.” The Ongod would be something like the divine in all spiritual beings that we perceive. Thus, in this sense, the idea of a personal God was something quite familiar to the population that inhabited this belt of the earth. We can therefore understand why this view bore its most significant fruit in this belt of the earth. For this belt of the earth, with its population, had, so to speak, solved the mystery of the I. Basically, all development since the Atlantean era has been based on either parts of the population maintaining the right balance of the I-feeling or developing the I too strongly or too weakly. Nothing special could come of any peoples who had developed the I too strongly or too weakly to any degree. The peoples who have just been described as the population of the Near East, and also the peoples of certain areas of Africa and, above all, Europe, had developed it in a peculiar way.

[ 15 ] These were the basic conditions for the later culture that developed around the time of our era. The ego had to develop to a certain point, but then it couldn't go too far in either direction. And our job today is to understand this in the right way. Because in a certain sense, all spiritual science has to appeal to what we call the development of a higher ego out of the lower ego. Looking back now, we can say that the fact that certain sections of the earth's population did not find the opportunity to keep pace with the earth's development in the evolution of their ego teaches us how much can be missed in relation to the development of the higher ego out of the lower ego. For example, in ancient Atlantis there were peoples who later became Indians, who lost themselves, so to speak, from the Earth's population. What would they have said if they had been able to express what was a fact of their development? They would have said: Above all, I want to develop my inner self, my inner self, which is my highest self when I look within myself! — And they developed this ego so strongly that it even affected their skin color: they turned copper red. They developed in decadence. These are the ones who, in the Atlantean population, where everything still went into the flesh and skin, cultivated something that could be called “brooding within the ego,” who had the conviction, so to speak: I find everything that needs to be developed within myself! The other extreme were those who said: Oh, the ego is worthless! The ego must lose itself completely, must be completely absorbed, must let everything be told to it from outside! — In reality, they did not say this, because they did not reflect in this way. But these are the ones who denied their ego so much that they became black, because the external forces coming from the sun to the earth made them black. Only those who were able to maintain a balance in relation to their ego were able to develop into the future.

[ 16 ] Let us now look at the population of our Earth. There are still people today who say: Oh, the anthroposophists talk about a spiritual world that they seek within themselves. But we look to our good old religious traditions that have been handed down to us from outside. We build on what comes to us from outside and do not care much about a higher world! Today, of course, everything is more spiritual than it was in Atlantis. Today, people no longer become pessimistic if they rely solely on traditions, if they say: Those who are entrusted with our salvation, who work around us and who are employed to bring our souls to heaven, will take care of us! Today, people no longer become pessimistic. But let us not deny everything: there are still areas of Europe today where people say that such an attitude makes you “black”! Today, everything is more spiritual! So that is one group. The other group are those who, without first engaging with what spiritual science can offer us in all its details—the research from the Akashic Records, the nature of reincarnation and karma, the principles of human nature, and so on, which require effort to understand—are too comfortable and say: Why do I need all that? I look inside myself, that is my higher self, there is the God-man in me! Such an attitude develops very frequently, even on the basis of theosophy. People don't want to learn anything, they don't want to really develop themselves and wait until the I has encompassed all the individual forms, but instead they run around waiting for the God-man to speak through them, and the higher self is emphasized over and over again. Yes, there is even a certain literature that says: You don't need to learn anything! Just let the God-man speak through you! Today, when everything is more spiritual, people don't turn bright red anymore. But you fall into a similar fate as the population that has always insisted on its ego.

[ 17 ] That is what we need: an ego that keeps moving, that must not lose itself in external physical observation, in external physical experience, but that also does not remain at one point, but really advances toward spiritual forms. That is why the great masters of wisdom and harmony of feelings did not tell us from the beginning of the theosophical movement: Let the God-man speak through you! Instead, they gave us very specific impulses to find the mysteries of the world in all their details. And we are not disciples of the great masters if we only want to let the God-man speak from within us, or if we believe that each individual carries his master within himself, but rather if we want to get to know the formation of the world in all its details. Spiritual scientific development is striving for knowledge of all the intimacies of world events. Then we reach our higher self as we ascend from stage to stage in our development. Our ego is expressed outwardly in the wonders of the world. For we are born out of the world and want to live our lives in this world.

[ 18 ] Thus we see how the conditions of today, into which human beings can fall, are only, so to speak, newer, more spiritual forms of what we already encountered in the Atlantean epoch. Even then, there were already these three parts among human beings: those who really wanted to develop their ego, who took in new things and always new things, and thereby truly became bearers of the post-Atlantean culture. There were others who only wanted to let their God-man speak through them, and their ego permeated them with a copper-red color. And the third group, who turned their attention only outward, and this part became black.

[ 19 ] We really must take the right lesson for ourselves from what these processes of Earth's development show us. Then we will be able to find the right impulse within the anthroposophical movement. What happens has always happened in a certain way, but it happens again in ever new forms. This makes the anthroposophical movement something so great and significant that it is now continuing to develop in the earthly realms in a more invisible way something that developed visibly in Atlantis. Thus, human beings are rushing from the culture of the visible toward a cultural epoch of the invisible and increasingly invisible.