The Spiritual Hierarchies
GA 110
Düsseldorf, April 13, 1909, Morning
Lecture III
[ 1 ] Some questions may have arisen in many souls towards the end of yesterday's lecture about the so-called lowest realm of the hierarchies. And this is only natural, for according to modern ideas, much of what has been said must appear doubtful and inexplicable, but the following lectures will throw light on many points. One thing must be made clear to-day to enable you to gain the proper orientation of mind to deal appropriately with the subject. Someone might ask for instance: ‘Even if through thinking and concentrating over a stone, you really do raise a bewitched spirit out of it, after having set that spirit free, what remains in the stone? Is the being still in it, and what happens to the stone?’ Another may follow me and go through the same process, what comes of it? This question might arise in many minds. As I have said before; some of these questions will be answered in these lectures; but if the understanding of them has to depend only upon such qualifications for thinking as the Earth gives to man, these questions cannot really be grasped at all. For everything is veiled upon earth, everything is covered by Maya, and human thought sees things quite differently from what they are in reality, but it is not the fault of the facts, that these questions remain unanswered. The questions are put in the wrong way, but in time we shall find the standard by which we can put our questions correctly. Things change essentially for us when the whole matter does not remain so veiled in illusion. Upon the earth all things are, so to speak, jumbled together, and through this the thoughts of man are continually led astray. We get a clearer idea of things when we go back into more ancient times. [ 2 ] Just as man passes from one incarnation to another, one metamorphosis to another, so all the beings in the universe pass through reincarnations, from the smallest to the greatest, even such a being as our earth — a planetary being — passes through reincarnation. Our earth did not appear at first as earth; it passed through a different condition. This has always been much spoken of in anthroposophical circles. Just as man in this life is the reincarnation of a previous life, so the earth is also the reincarnation of another planet which was its forerunner. We call that former planet Moon, but we do not mean by it our present moon which is only a part, a residue of the ancient moon, we mean a former condition of the earth, which existed once upon a time and then passed through a spiritual state called Pralaya, in the same way as man passes through a spiritual condition after death. Just as man reincarnates, so this lunar planet is a reincarnation. That which we have characterised as the lunar planetary condition, was the reincarnation of a still earlier planetary condition, which we call Sun. This is not the sun of to-day, but quite a different being; it was the reincarnation of the first planet to which we look back when speaking of incarnations of our Earth, — the very ancient Saturn. Thus we have four successive incarnations; Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth.
[ 3 ] We have also often said that each planetary condition has a special task. What is the task of our earth? It is to make human existence possible for man as man. All the activities of the earth are such that through them man may become an I-being, an Ego being. This was not the case in the former conditions it has passed through. Man has only become human, in the present sense of the word, on earth. The former planetary conditions, which the earth has passed through had a similar task. Other beings became human on those other planets, and now stand at a higher stage than man. Perhaps you will remember in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact that an Egyptian Sage gave to Solon the Greek a remarkable hint regarding the truth of the Mysteries; he told him, that it was a truth of very great importance, that the gods were once men. This was one of those truths which the pupil of the Mysteries had to accept in ancient times, that the gods who to-day are above in the spiritual height, were not always gods, but that they had risen to those heights, and also that they were once men and had once passed through the human stage. A dangerous truth, because as a natural consequence the pupil of the Mysteries drew the inference that he too would become a god some day. It was also possible for man to say to himself: ‘A man can only become a god when he is ripe for it and if he imagines for one moment that he is a god before he is ready for it, he will not be a god, but a fool.’ And. so two roads are open to man; to live in patience, as Dionysius says, till the time of his deification, or else to imagine himself already a god before the time. The one road leads in truth to deification, the other one leads to folly, to madness. [ 4 ] Misunderstandings often arise about the sayings of the ancients, for at the present day one differentiates no longer between the various degrees of divine beings. The Egyptian Sage who spoke of the gods did not mean only one degree of the gods, but he meant the whole sequence of spiritual divine beings. Dionysius the Areopagite and the Western sages have always differentiated between those different degrees of divine spiritual beings. It is the same thing whether to speak of angels or of Dhyan-Chohans, for those who realise the unity of cosmic wisdom knew that these were merely different names for one and the same thing, but in this realm we must also know how to differentiate. The beings, who are the first to be invisible and who stand immediately above man, are called Angels in Christian esotericism, Angeloi, messengers of the divine spirit-world. Those who stand yet one degree higher, therefore two stages higher than man, are called Archangels, Archangeloi, also spirits of fire. Those who stand still higher than the Archangels, when they pass through their normal development, are called the Spirits of Personality, Archai, or Primeval Beginnings. Thus we have three degrees of beings who stand above man. These three degrees of spiritual beings have all passed through the human stage; once they were all men. The beings who are Angels to-day, if one considers it from the point of view of universal time, were human not so very long ago, for they were men upon the old Moon; and just as you, because of earthly conditions, inhabit the earth as men, so did the Angels inhabit the Moon during their human stage. The Archangels passed through their human stage on the Sun, and the Archai, or spirits of personality did the same on ancient Saturn. These beings have risen by degrees from their human stage, they are higher beings to-day, in higher grades of hierarchies than man. If we reckon the sequence of degrees in the kingdoms of the world in a spiritual sense we arrive at the following: On the Earth we have the visible mineral kingdom, the vegetable and animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and then we pass into the invisible, into the kingdom of Angels, the Archangels or Spirits of Fire, the Archai or Spirits of Personality. Whilst these beings in accordance with their own inner nature were progressing and developing, rising from man to divinity, or to messengers of the divine (the correct description of those beings), whilst they were thus rising in their evolution, the conditions of the planet, on which and for the sake of which they lived, gradually changed. If we look back at ancient Saturn on which the Archai or Spirits of Personality passed through their human stage, we find it very different from our earth.
[ 5 ] Yesterday, we spoke of the four elements which we distinguished on earth, as earth, water, air, fire. The three first elements did not exist as yet upon ancient Saturn. Of the four there was only fire, or warmth, on Saturn. The materialistic philosopher of to-day will say: ‘But warmth can only come about, only be perceived by means of external objects; there are warm bodies, warm water etc., but warmth cannot exist of itself.’ That is the materialistic philosopher's belief but it is not true. If you could have observed ancient Saturn with your present-day senses what would you have found?
Let us take it as an hypothesis that you might have flown through universal space to ancient Saturn. You would have seen nothing where the ancient Saturn used to be; one thing only you would have felt and that was warmth.
If you had flown through the body of ancient Saturn, you would have felt as if you had flown through a heated baking oven. You could not have drawn a breath of air, you could not have swum, for there was neither air nor water, you could not have stood, for there was no earth. Your hand could not have touched anything, for there was a mere ball of warmth. The whole of ancient Saturn consisted only of warmth. In its first metamorphosis our earth's existence began as a planet of warmth, and thus you can see how right ancient Herakleitos of Ephesus was when he said: ‘Everything has come from fire.’ Yes, indeed! As the earth is nothing but ancient Saturn transmuted, so everything on earth has been created out of fire. Herakleitos knew of this truth from the ancient Mysteries, and he hints at this when he says that the book in which he wrote of this was dedicated to the Goddess of Ephesus and that he placed it on the altar there, meaning that he was conscious of owing the knowledge of this truth to the Mysteries of Ephesus where the teaching of primeval Saturnian fire was proclaimed in all its purity. You can see now that those beings we call Archai, Primal-Beings or Spirits of Personality, passed through their human stage in quite different conditions from the man of to-day. Man can at present receive into the bodily constitution of his bone and blood system, solids, liquids and gases. The man of Saturn, the Spirit of Personality, had to build his body out of warmth.
[ 6 ] I told you yesterday that warmth has, so to speak, two sides to it. One side is what we can feel inwardly, as inner warmth; we feel that we are either cold or warm without having to touch our surroundings, as in the case when we contact the solid element; but we can also feel warmth outwardly, when we grasp a warm object. The peculiarity of the Saturn evolution is that it gradually passed from this inner warmth, which could be felt only inwardly, to the external warmth, to a warmth which, towards the end of its evolution, became more and more external, more realisable from outside. If you had undertaken your voyage through space during the first stage of the Saturn evolution, you would not have felt any warmth on your skin, but you would have felt yourself warm inside; you would have said, ‘I feel comfortably warm.’ Something resembling what you would call soul's warmth to-day, could have been felt by you if you had made this voyage during the very first stages of ancient Saturn. You can imagine the experience you would have had, if you consider the following: You know that there is a difference for you when you look at something red or at something blue. Red gives a warm feeling; and blue gives you a feeling of cold. Imagine that the feeling, which is liberated in the human soul by the impression of something red, did not exist as yet, but you might have felt something warm and comfortable. Towards the end of the Saturn evolution you would have felt not only inner warmth, but also as if warmth came towards you from outside. The inner warmth would have gradually changed to warmth which was outwardly realised. This is the way Saturn has developed; from an inner soul's warmth it changed to a warmth which was realised outwardly, to that which we call external warmth, or fire. One might say: ‘Just as a child grows up to manhood and has many different experiences so did the Spirits of Personality grow up on ancient Saturn; first they felt themselves inwardly warm, comfortably warm, then gradually they felt this warmth being exteriorised, made real, yes, we might even say incarnated.’ What happened then? If you want to imagine it you must represent it to yourselves thus: At first we have the inner warming process of the globe of Saturn. It is then first possible for the Spirits of Personality to incarnate. Whilst they are incarnating that which we call external warmth is produced. If you had undertaken your voyage during the later stages of Saturn you could have differentiated outer impressions of warmth and also of cold. And if you made a drawing of the self contained bodies of warmth you would find nothing but eggs of warmth clustering on the surface of Saturn, forming its outer crust. If you could have seen it from outside, it would have looked like a blackberry or raspberry. What were these eggs? They were the bodies of the Spirits of Personality, and it was precisely through their inner warmth that the Spirits of Personality built the external warmth of these Saturn eggs. It might be truly said of this condition: The Spirits brooded over the warmth, they actually brought forth the first fire bodies. If we may so express it: within that region of warmth, the external eggs of warmth coagulated from out their inner warmth. Out of universal space the first fire bodies were hatched. The Spirits of Personality, or Archai (they are also called Asuras) were incarnated in these fire bodies. Saturn only consisted of that element of fire.
[ 7 ] During the Saturn evolution it was possible for the Spirits of Personality to transmute external warmth into inner warmth. The process was not stiff or hard, but was one of inner movement. In fact, the Spirits of Personality were continually producing these eggs of warmth and letting them dissolve again. And now we shall be able to imagine the process more exactly. Let us suppose that you made that journey over and over again; you would have noticed that there were times when there was no outer warmth to be felt, only that inner feeling of comfort; then again times when those eggs of warmth appeared. You would have realised something like a breathing of the whole being of ancient Saturn, but it was a breathing of fire. You would have thought: ‘Sometimes I am within this ancient Saturn in such a way that I feel that all external warmth has turned inward, has withdrawn and I experience only that feeling of inner comfort.’ And you would have said: ‘Now Saturn has in-breathed all the warmth.’ And coming back another time and finding all those eggs of warmth you would have said: ‘Now Saturn has breathed out his inner warmth, all is external fire.’ [ 8 ] You must understand that the ancient Holy Rishis gave this idea to their pupils; they transported themselves in spirit back to the times of ancient Saturn, and made their pupils realise how a whole planet was able to produce something that resembled an expansion and contraction in breathing. They evoked in their pupils the conception that fire when it flows out forms countless bodies of warmth and when the fire is sucked in, it becomes the inner Self, an Ego, of the Spirits of Personality. Therefore, they compared the life of this planet to an in and out-breathing, but on ancient Saturn it was only a breathing of fire. Air as yet did not exist.
Now let us suppose that all those Spirits of Personality on ancient Saturn had remained at the stage of their normal evolution and had continually inhaled and exhaled warmth. They would have accomplished their regular Saturn evolution and the consequence would have been that in the course of time all would have been withdrawn again into inner warmth, and Saturn as an external planet of fire would have been received again into the spiritual realms of the World. This might have happened. We should then never have had the Sun, Moon, and Earth conditions, for then all that had been breathed forth would have returned to inner warmth, would have been received again into the spiritual world. I shall now make use of a trivial expression which will make this more comprehensible. It pleased certain of those Spirits of Personality better to draw in again only a part of that exhaled warmth; it pleased them to leave some of it behind, so that when inhaling, some of those Saturn eggs did not disappear completely, but remained. Thus two states or conditions developed gradually on Saturn: inner warmth, and along side of it outer warmth incarnated in the Saturn eggs. Not all of it was drawn in. The Spirits of Personality left some of that out-breathed warmth to take care of itself, as it were; they left it outside. Now why did they do that? They had to do it; if they had not they would never have become men on Saturn. [ 9 ] What does it mean to become men? It means to attain consciousness of self. You cannot do this unless you can differentiate yourself as ‘I’ from what is outside you. Only through this are you an ‘I,’ an ego: there, you say, is the flowering branch, here am I. I differentiate myself as ‘I’ from the objects around me. The Spirits of Personality would have allowed their ‘I’ merely to dream out eternally if they had not left something outside that could offer resistance to them. ‘There is another outside of me, I differentiate myself from the element of warmth which has been made objective.’ The Spirit of Personality, became Egos, attained consciousness of self, through having pushed a part of the Saturn essence outside into an existence of merely outer warmth. They said to themselves: I must allow something to stream out of me, and leave it outside, so that I am able to differentiate myself, so that my self-consciousness may be lit by that external element. Thus they created another kingdom near to them, created a mirrored image of their inner life in that outward life. Thus it came about that when the life of Saturn had run its course, the Spirits of Personality were not in a position to allow Saturn to disappear. This would have happened if they had inhaled all the fire; but they could not breathe in again that which they had exhaled out of themselves. The field which had offered them the possibility of gaining consciousness of self had to be left to itself. [ 10 ] No condition of Pralaya could have arisen for Saturn through the Spirits of Personality alone. Higher spirits had to come into action in order to dissolve Saturn so that a Pralaya, or state of transition, of disappearance and of sleep might take place. Higher spirits, the Thrones, of which we will only give the name at present, had to dissolve all this, so that, as the life of Saturn reached its end, the following process was carried out. The Spirits of Personality had attained self-consciousness, had breathed in again a part of the warmth, had realised the Self as the centre of their being, and left behind them a lower kingdom. Now entered the kingdom of the Thrones and dissolved that which had been left behind, and Saturn entered into a sort of planetary night. Then arose the planetary morning. Everything had to wake up again through laws which we shall learn later. If the whole of Saturn had disappeared through the inbreathing of the whole warmth, there could have been no awakening, for the whole of Saturn would have been taken up into the spiritual world. The Thrones could now for a season dissolve that which the Spirits of Personality had left behind, those eggs of warmth, but they could do so only for a time. These had to be given over as it were to a lower existence for their further development. Through this a planetary morning dawned; the second metamorphosis of Saturn — the Sun condition!
What was it that actually came to life in this new Sun-condition? The Spirits of Personality having now self-consciousness passed to it from ancient Saturn after the planetary condition of sleep; they were no longer required to pass through any similar condition to that which they had already passed through: they had breathed out certain eggs of warmth which had emerged again gradually, and differentiated themselves from the general mass; the consequence was that the Spirits of Personality were bound to that part of themselves which they had formerly left behind. If they had taken everything with them into the spiritual world they would not have been tied to the Sun, they would not have needed to come down again but they had to do so, because they had left behind them a part of their own essence, their own being. They had to concern themselves with it; it drew them downwards into a new planetary existence. [ 11 ] This was the Destiny of Saturn, world-Karma, cosmic Karma. Because the Spirits of Personality on ancient Saturn had not taken everything into themselves, they had prepared that Karma for themselves which obliged them to return. They found down below as an heirloom from ancient Saturn what they themselves had brought to pass. What happened when the Spirits of Personality now took up the Karma which they had created? That happened which I explained yesterday. The warmth divided itself, into light on one side, and into smoke on the other. In the reborn Saturn (the Sun) the eggs of warmth reappeared as gas air, or smoke, as we have called it on one side; and on the other side appeared light, because the warmth returned, so to speak, in a higher condition. Inwardly in the transformed Saturn there was smoke, gas, air, and on the other side light! If traveling through space you had now reached the place where this ancient Sun was, you would have perceived from afar that which had formed itself into light, because behind it was smoke. If not the light itself, you would yet have perceived a shining ball, just a you perceived a ball of warmth on Saturn. You would have encountered a shining ball and if you had come in touch with its surface, if you had penetrated that ball, you would have felt not only warmth but wind, air, gas, streaming from all sides.
Thus your ball of warmth has transformed itself into a shining orb; a sun has come into being. One is fully justified in calling it a sun; the orbs that are suns to-day are now passing through this same process, inwardly they are masses of streaming gas, and on the other side they cause that gas to turn into light; they shed abroad light through space. Thus, light was really first formed in the transmutations of our earth, light appeared then for the first time. In the warmth of ancient Saturn, the Spirits of Personality had first the possibility of becoming human; in the light which now streamed from the Sun those beings of the spiritual hierarchies, whom we call Archangels, or Archangeloi could become human. In fact, if you could have approached the Sun then, not only as a man of to-day but as a clairvoyant man, you would not only have perceived light streaming from it — not light only — but also the actions of the Archangels would have streamed towards you with the light. [ 12 ] But the Archangels had brought with them something in exchange as it were. The ancient Spirits of Personality had found on Saturn, pure warmth. The Archangels, who were first able to become human on the Sun, found there gas or smoke, also. What had they to do in order to secure a footing on the Sun, to establish a dwelling-place there? They formed their own souls, they wove their inner being, their soul-bodies out of warmth into light, and they joined to these soul-bodies the gas that was there, an external body. As you have to-day a body and a soul, so the Archangels as men had an inner life of warmth which rayed forth light, and an outer physical body which consisted of gas and air. As the man of to-day has a body consisting of earth, water, air and fire, so did those Archangels consist of air, and inwardly they consisted of light. The fire element they, of course, brought over with them: for this was the element which developed into smoke and light. The whole of their being consisted of light, warmth or fire and smoke or air. By means of the light they let their shining force stream out into universal space; by means of fire they lived their inner life, they experienced the comfort of warmth. Through the life they led in their gas bodies they lived in the Sun planet itself. They could now differentiate their own body of gas from the general substance of the Sun planet. They jostled against each other, and through this contact developed a kind of consciousness of self. This self-consciousness Archangels could develop further and further only because it pleased the Archangels better, if one may so express it, to dwell in their bodies of gas and smoke, or at any rate to leave them in the general Sun substance. For these Archangels during alternating conditions of the ancient Sun, had inhaled all the gas, all the smoke which was around them, they had taken it into themselves. We have now a process of real breathing. You would have felt those currents of gas on the ancient Sun as a process of breathing. You would have found there certain conditions, when there was an absolute stillness and you would have thought that the Archangels had now breathed in all the gas. Then the Archangels began to breathe it out again, inner currents began to flow and at the same time light came forth. The interchange of conditions on the Sun was as follows: the Archangels inhaled gas and stillness followed, darkness also — it was the Suns night ... They exhaled and the Sun was filled with streams of smoke, at the same time it sent forth its light outwards — it was the Sun's day. Thus there was a process of real breathing of the whole body of the Sun. Exhalation: — the Sun's day, illumination of the surrounding world. Inhalation: — the Sun's night, oncoming darkness in the world. [ 13 ] You have here the description also of the difference between the ancient Sun and the sun of to-day. Our present sun shines always, and darkness is produced only when some object is placed in front of its light. This was different with the ancient Sun. It had in itself the power to produce the interchanges of light and darkness, illumination and obscurity, for that was its process of exhalation and inhalation. Let us now vividly imagine how one would see those happenings externally. [ 14 ] Let us take the condition of exhalation. Light is then shed around, but at the same time the Sun is filled with smoke. These forms and currents of smoke are like regularly recurrent pictures, they are imprinted on the substance of the Sun with every exhalation. That which formerly was only egg-shaped, the eggs of warmth, changed into all sorts of regular images. Quite distinct smoke pictures with an inner life and inner regularity were produced. If I may use the expression: the eggs were hatched. That was really to what this solidifying process might be compared. Just as the chicken comes out of the eggs, so were those eggs of warmth split in two, and regular forms came out of them, figures of smoke which were the densest bodies of the Archangels. They inhabited the Sun in bodies of gas, smoke, and air. Thus they moved about as men on the Sun. We have now the spiritual idea of a fixed star, of a sun world, which is a sun through its own power, which can produce the interchange of day and night by its own power. Like an exhalation and inhalation it produces the interchange of light and darkness. For at that time the Sun was a sort of fixed star. Everything in our universal space that shines of itself sends out into that space together with light the life of spiritual messengers, the Archangels. [ 15 ] What, then, have the primal Archai, the Spirits of Personality, accomplished through their own evolution, what have they established? It is mainly through them that the Sun appeared. While otherwise only a Saturn existence would have appeared in evolution», while otherwise only the Archai, who had filled Saturn with warmth, would have existed, now, because the Archai had surrendered the external eggs of warmth, Saturn was transformed into Sun, on which the Archangels found it possible to pass through their human stage. They were the heralds who announced to the world: ‘The Primal Beginnings or the Spirits of Personality, were our forerunners. As messengers, we proclaim to the universe in rays of light, the former existence of Saturn, of warmth-filled Saturn. We are the messengers, the heralds of the Archai.’ Angel means Messenger, Archai means the Beginnings. The Archangels were nothing else than the heralds of the deeds of the Primal Beginnings or Archai of former times. Therefore, they are called Angels of the Beginnings, ‘Archai-Angels’ which, in English, has become Archangels. These Archangels were the men of the Sun.
Dritter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Es werden gestern am Ende des Vortrages über das sozusagen unterste Reich der geistigen Hierarchien in mancher Seele Gedanken aufgestiegen sein, mancherlei Fragen sich aufgedrängt haben. Und das ist nur natürlich, denn gegenüber dem Denken und Vorstellen, das der Mensch heute haben kann, erscheint sehr vieles von dem, was gesagt worden ist, zunächst fragwürdig und unerklärlich. Der Lauf der Vorträge wird von selbst über mancherlei Licht verbreiten. Eines aber muß schon heute gesagt werden, damit Sie sozusagen eine Direktive haben für die ganze Gesinnung, die man einer solchen Sache entgegenzubringen hat. Heute kann sich der Mensch zum Beispiel die naheliegende Frage vorlegen: Ja, wenn du nun wirklich ein verzaubertes Wesen aus einem Stein heraushebst, indem du über den Stein nachdenkst und nachsinnst und indem du nachher dieses verzauberte Wesen sozusagen befreist, was bleibt denn dann im Stein noch drinnen? Ist denn noch dieses Wesen im Stein drinnen, oder was ist eigentlich im Stein geschehen? Der Zweite, der nun nachkommt und denselben Prozeß durchmacht, wie ist es mit dem? — Diese Frage könnte also bei sehr vielen entstehen. Wie gesagt, im Laufe der Vorträge wird sich manche solche Frage beantworten, aber gesagt werden muß, daß mit demjenigen, was die Erde dem Menschen gibt zum Denken, diese Dinge überhaupt gar noch nicht erfaßt werden können. Denn auf der Erde ist alles verhüllt, alles in Maja gekleidet, und die Dinge sehen für den Gedanken ganz anders aus, als sie in Wirklichkeit sind. Es ist nicht Schuld der Tatsachen, daß die Fragen unbeantwortet bleiben. Die Fragen sind falsch gestellt, aber wir werden den Maßstab für die richtige Fragestellung schon mit der Zeit gewinnen. Wesentlich anders nehmen sich die Dinge schon aus, wenn wir in Zustände Einblick erhalten, die eben die ganze Sache noch nicht so in Illusion gehüllt enthalten. Auf der Erde ist alles ineinandergeschoben; dadurch wird das Denken der Menschen fortwährend getäuscht. Wir bekommen reinere Vorstellungen von den Sachen, wenn wir zurückgehen in ältere Zeiten.
[ 2 ] Geradeso wie der Mensch Verkörperung nach Verkörperung durchmacht, Metamorphose nach Metamorphose, so machen alle Wesen der Welt Verkörperungen und Wiederverkörperungen durch, vom kleinsten bis zum größten, und auch ein solches Wesen, wie unsere Erde selber ist, also ein planetarisches Wesen, macht Wiederverkörperungen durch. Unsere Erde war nicht etwa schon als Erde entstanden, sondern ihr ging voran ein anderer Zustand. Darüber ist ja gerade in unseren Kreisen immer besonders viel gesprochen worden, daß ebenso wie der Mensch in diesem Dasein die Wiederverkörperung eines vorhergehenden Lebens ist, auch die Erde eine Wiederverkörperung eines alten Planeten darstellt, der ihr vorangegangen ist. Wir bezeichnen als diesen vorangegangenen Planeten den Mond und meinen damit nicht den heutigen Mond, der nur ein Stück, ein Rest ist vom alten Mond, sondern einen vorhergehenden Zustand unserer Erde, der einmal da war und ebenso durch ein geistiges Leben hindurchgegangen ist, das man gewöhnlich Pralaya nennt, wie der Mensch nach dem Tode durch einen geistigen Zustand durchgeht. Dieser Mondplanet ist wiedergeboren worden, wie der Mensch wiedergeboren wird. Was wir aber so als den planetarischen Zustand des Mondes bezeichnet haben, das ist wiederum nur die Verkörperung eines vorhergehenden planetarischen Zustandes, den wir als Sonne bezeichnen. Diese, also nicht die heutige Sonne, sondern ein ganz anderes Wesen, diese Sonne ist die Wiederverkörperung des letzten Planeten, auf den wir zunächst zurückzuschauen haben, wenn wir von den Verkörperungen unserer Erde sprechen, des uralten Saturn. So haben wir also vier aufeinanderfolgende Verkörperungen: den Saturn, die Sonne, den Mond, die Erde.
[ 3 ] Wir haben auch öfter erwähnt, daß jeder planetarische Zustand eine bestimmte Aufgabe hat. Was hat unsere Erde für eine Aufgabe? Die Aufgabe unserer Erde ist, dem Menschen, wie wir ihn heute Mensch nennen, eben sein Menschendasein möglich zu machen. Alle Wirkungen der Erde sind so, daß durch sie der Mensch eine Ich-Wesenheit wird. Das war in früheren Zuständen, die er mitgemacht hat, nicht der Fall. Der Mensch ist also sozusagen Mensch im heutigen Sinne erst auf der Erde geworden. Eine ähnliche Aufgabe hatten die früheren planetarischen Zustände, die die Erde durchgemacht hat. Andere Wesenheiten sind auf diesen anderen Planeten Mensch geworden, Wesenheiten, die heute eben höher stehen als der Mensch. Sie erinnern sich vielleicht aus meinem Buche «Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache», daß ein ägyptischer Weiser dem Griechen Solon einmal eine merkwürdige Andeutung gemacht hat über eine Mysterienwahrheit; daß er ihm gesagt hat, es sei eine wichtige Wahrheit, daß die Götter einstmals Menschen waren. Das gehörte geradezu zu jenen Wahrheiten, die der Mysterienschüler schon im Altertum empfangen mußte, daß die Götter, die heute oben stehen in den geistigen Höhen, nicht immer Götter waren, sondern daß sie hinaufgestiegen sind und daß sie auch einmal Menschen gewesen sind, auch einmal die Menschheitsstufen durchgemacht haben. Natürlich folgt daraus unmittelbar eine gefährliche Wahrheit, die die Mysterienschüler auch daraus ziehen mußten als Konsequenz: daß nämlich die Menschen einmal Götter werden. Und gerade um dieser Konsequenz willen betrachtete man diese Wahrheit als etwas Gefährliches; denn notwendig ist, daß man sich zu gleicher Zeit sagt: Der Mensch kann erst Gott werden, wenn er dazu reif ist; und wenn er sich jemals in einem Augenblick einbildet, den Gott in sich zu finden, bevor er reif dazu ist, so wird er eben nicht ein Gott, sondern ein Tor. - Und dem Menschen stehen daher diese zwei Wege offen: in Geduld seiner, wie es Dionysius nennt, Deifikation entgegenzuleben, seiner Gottwerdung, oder aber sich vorher einzubilden, er sei schon Gott. Der eine Weg führt wirklich zur Vergottung, der andere zur Torheit, zur Narrheit.
[ 4 ] In den Ausdrücken des Altertums wird sehr häufig deshalb etwas Mißverständliches gesehen, weil in unserer Gegenwart nicht mehr unterschieden wird zwischen den verschiedenen Stufen göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten. Der ägyptische Weise, der also von Göttern gesprochen hat, der hat damit nicht etwa nur eine Stufe von Göttern oder von Gott gemeint, sondern ganze Stufenfolgen göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten. Dionysius der Areopagite und auch die östlichen Weisen, sie haben immer diese Stufen göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten unterschieden. Ob wir nun sprechen von Engeln oder von DhyanChohans, das ist gleich, denn diejenigen, die wirklich die Einheit der Weltenweisheit erkennen, wissen, daß das nur verschiedene Namen sind für eine Sache. Aber auch in diesem Reich muß man wiederum unterscheiden. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die zunächst unsichtbar sind und welche unmittelbar über dem Menschen stehen, das heißt eine Stufe höher stehen als der Mensch, die nennt man in der christlichen Esoterik Engel, Angeloi, Boten, das heißt Boten der göttlich-geistigen Welt. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die wiederum eine Stufe höher stehen, also zwei Stufen höher als der Mensch, nennt man Erzengel, Archangeloi, auch Feuergeister. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die wiederum, wenn sie ihre normale Entwickelung durchmachen, eine Stufe höher stehen als die Erzengel, das sind die Wesenheiten, die man nennt Geister der Persönlichkeit oder Urbeginne, Urkräfte, Archai. So haben wir also zunächst drei Stufen über dem Menschen stehender Wesenheiten. Diese drei Arten von Wesenheiten haben alle ihre Menschheit durchgemacht, sie waren einmal Menschen. Wesen, die heute Engel sind, haben sogar, wenn man nach Weltenzeiten die Sache ansieht, ihr Menschentum gar nicht so weit hinter sich, sie waren auf dem Monde Menschen; und so wie Sie durch die Erdenverhältnisse auf der Erde als Menschen herumwandeln können, so konnten die Engel in ihrer Menschheitsstufe eben den Mond bewohnen. Die Erzengel machten ihre Menschheitsstufe auf der Sonne durch, und die Urbeginne, die Geister der Persönlichkeit, auf dem alten Saturn. So also sind diese Wesenheiten vom Menschentum stufenweise aufgeschritten, sind heute höhere Wesenheiten in höheren Stufen der Hierarchie als der Mensch, und wir können einfach sagen, wenn wir nun die Stufenlage der Weltreiche im geistigen Sinne aufzählen: Wir haben auf der Erde sichtbar das mineralische Reich, das Pflanzenreich, das Tierreich, das menschliche Reich, und nun geht es ins Unsichtbare hinauf, ins Reich der Engel, der Feuergeister oder Erzengel, der Urkräfte oder Geister der Persönlichkeit oder Archai. Während so diese Wesenheiten nun in bezug auf ihr inneres Werden und Wesen vorwärtsschritten, sozusagen von Menschen zu Göttern wurden oder zu Götterboten — was sogar eine richtige Bezeichnung ist für diese Wesenheiten —, während so diese Wesenheiten in ein geistiges Dasein aufstiegen, veränderten sich die Zustände des Planeten, auf dem und für den sie lebten. Wenn wir zurückblicken auf den alten Saturn, auf dem die Archai Menschen waren, so finden wir ihn noch ganz anders aussehend als unsere Erde.
[ 5 ] Wir haben gestern davon gesprochen, daß wir auf unserer Erde vier Elemente unterscheiden: Erde, Wasser, Luft, Feuer oder Wärme. Von den drei erstgenannten Elementen war auf dem alten Saturn überhaupt noch nichts vorhanden. Von diesen vier Elementen gab es auf dem Saturn nur das Feuer oder die Wärme. Der heutige materialistische Philosoph wird sagen: Aber Wärme kann doch nur an äußeren Gegenständen uns entgegentreten, es kann warme feste Körper, warmes Wasser geben, aber es kann nicht Wärme für sich geben. Das glaubt eben der materialistische Philosoph; das ist aber nicht wahr. Wenn Sie mit heutigen Sinnen schon den Saturn hätten beobachten können, wie würde er sich dargestellt haben? Nehmen Sie an - wir setzen das als Hypothese voraus —, Sie wären in der alten Saturnzeit durch den Weltenraum geflogen. Gesehen hätten Sie nichts da, wo der alte Saturn war; eines aber würden Sie gewahr geworden sein: da ist es ja warm! Wie wenn Sie durch den erwärmten Raum eines Backofens geflogen wären, so wäre es Ihnen vorgekommen, wenn Sie den Saturn durchflogen hätten. Sie hätten nicht etwa einen Luftzug spüren können, hätten nicht schwimmen können, denn Luft, Wasser gab es noch nicht; auftreten hätten Sie auch nicht können, denn Erde gab es noch nicht. Ihre Hand hätte nichts berühren können; es war eben die ganze Kugel nur Wärme. Also der alte Saturn bestand lediglich zunächst aus dem Elemente der Wärme oder des Feuers. Unser Erdendasein fing in seiner ersten Metamorphose an als ein Planet der Wärme, und daraus können Sie schon entnehmen, wie es richtig ist, wenn zum Beispiel der alte Heraklit sagt: Alles ist aus dem Feuer entsprungen. — Ja selbstverständlich! Weil die Erde nur der verwandelte alte Saturn ist, so ist auch alles auf der Erde aus diesem Feuer herausgekommen. Das war eine Wahrheit, die Heraklit aus den alten Mysterien hatte. Das wird auch angedeutet, indem gesagt wird, daß er das Buch, indem er diese Wahrheit niedergeschrieben hatte, der Göttin zu Ephesus geweiht, auf dem Altar dort niedergelegt hat. Das bedeutet, daß er sich bewußt war, daß er diese Weisheit den Mysterien, den ephesischen Mysterien verdankt, wo in ihrer Reinheit diese Lehre vom Urfeuer Saturn noch immer verkündet worden ist. Nun können Sie auch daraus entnehmen, daß diejenigen Wesen, die wir Urbeginne, Archai, Geister der Persönlichkeit nennen, unter ganz anderen Verhältnissen ihr Menschentum durchgemacht haben als der heutige Mensch. Der Mensch heute hat die Möglichkeit, in seine Körperlichkeit, in sein Knochen- und Blutsystem das Feste, das Flüssige, das Gasförmige hereinzunehmen. Der Mensch des Saturn, der Geist der Persönlichkeit, mußte sich seinen ganzen Leib aus Wärme, aus Feuer bilden. Und das tat er auch: Er hatte nur einen Feuerleib, der Geist der Persönlichkeit auf dem alten Saturn. Sein Leib bestand nur aus Wärme.
[ 6 ] Ich habe Ihnen gestern gesagt, daß die Wärme sozusagen zwei Seiten hat. Die eine Seite ist diese, daß sie eigentlich innerlich wahrgenommen wird als innerliche Wärme, wir fühlen uns warm oder kalt, ohne daß wir die Umgebung betasten wie beim Festen; aber wir können die Wärme auch äußerlich fühlen, wenn wir einen warmen Körper angreifen. Das ist das Eigenartige in der Entwickelung des Saturn, daß sozusagen die Wärme übergeht nach und nach vom Anfang des Saturn, wo sie eine bloß innerliche war, bis zum Ende, wo sie äußerlicher, wahrnehmbarer wird. Wenn Sie also im Anfangszustand des Saturn diese Reise durch die Welt gemacht hätten, dann würden Sie, wenn Sie den Raum des Saturn betreten hätten, auf Ihrer Haut keine Wärmebewegung gespürt haben, aber innerlich würden Sie sich gesagt haben: Es ist so behaglich warm. Etwas, was Sie heute nur noch als Seelenwärme kennen, das würde Sie überkommen haben, wenn Sie in den allerersten Stadien des Saturn diese Reise gemacht hätten. Sie können sich eine Vorstellung bilden der Erlebnisse, die Sie gehabt hätten, wenn Sie folgendes betrachten. Sie wissen, daß ein Unterschied besteht, wenn Sie eine rote oder eine blaue Fläche betrachten. Wenn Sie sich der roten Farbe gegenüberstellen, so sagen Ste sich: Das gibt ein warmes Gefühl]; stellen Sie sich dem Blauen gegenüber, so haben Sie das Gefühl des Kalten. Denken Sie sich diese Gefühle, die in der menschlichen Seele ausgelöst werden durch den Eindruck des Roten, den Sie damals ja nicht gehabt hätten, aber Sie hätten so etwas behaglich Warmes gefühlt, wie wenn Sie sich heute dem Roten gegenüberstellen. Am Ende der Saturnzeit würden Sie nicht nur diesen innerlich behaglichen Zustand gefühlt haben, sondern etwas, wie wenn von außen an Sie herangetreten wäre Wärme. Innerliche Wärme hätte sich allmählich verwandelt in äußere Wärmewahrnehmung. Das ist der Weg, den der Saturn durchmachte: von einer innerlich seelischen Wärme zu einer äußerlich wahrnehmbaren Wärme, zu dem, was wir äußerliche Wärme oder Feuer nennen. Und man möchte sagen: Geradeso wie das Kind heranwächst zum großen Menschen und verschiedenes durchmacht, so wuchsen auf dem alten Saturn die Geister der Persönlichkeit heran. Sie fühlten sich zuerst wie innerlich warm, sozusagen innerlich behaglich warm, und nach und nach fühlten sie diese Wärme auch veräußerlicht, verwirklicht, ja verkörperlicht, könnten wir sagen. Und was entstand da? Wenn Sie sich vor die Seele rufen wollen, was da entstand, dann müssen Sie sich’s so vorstellen: Vorerst haben wir die innerliche Erwärmung der Saturnkugel; da finden die Geister der Persönlichkeit die Möglichkeit, sich zuerst zu verkörpern. Während sie sich verkörpern, bildet sich dasjenige, was man äußere Wärme nennt. Und wenn Sie die Reise in einem späteren Saturnzustand hätten machen können, so hätten Sie auch unterscheiden können zwischen äußerlich warmen und kalten Stellen im Saturn. Und wenn Sie jetzt das nachgezeichnet hätten, was Sie als eingeschlossene Wärmekörper gefunden, dann hätte sich folgende Zeichnung ergeben: Im Umkreise ist es, wie wenn lauter solche Wärme-Eier eine Oberfläche des Saturn gebildet hätten. Von außen würde das ausgesehen haben, wenn man es hätte sehen können, wie eine Brombeere oder Himbeere. Was waren diese Eier? Es waren die Körper der Geister der Persönlichkeit, und diese Geister der Persönlichkeit bildeten gerade durch ihre innere Wärme die äußere Wärme dieser Saturn-Eier. Von diesem Zustande kann man so recht sagen: Und die Geister brüteten über der Wärme, und sie brüteten wirklich die ersten Feuerleiber aus. Vom Weltenraum herein wurden die ersten Feuerleiber ausgebrütet. Wenn wir den Ausdruck gebrauchen dürfen, es koagulierten im Wärmeraum die äußeren Wärme-Eier aus dem Innern heraus. Also, auf dem alten Saturn waren die Geister der Persönlichkeit, die Archai, man nennt sie auch Asuras, in diesen Feuerleibern verkörpert. Es bestand der Saturn nur aus diesem Elemente des Feuers.
[ 7 ] Nun gab es in dieser alten Saturnentwickelung für die Geister der Persönlichkeit die Möglichkeit, die äußere Wärme wiederum in innere zu verwandeln. Der Vorgang war nämlich nicht steif und hart, sondern innerlich beweglich. Tatsächlich erzeugten diese Geister der Persönlichkeit fortwährend diese Wärme-Eier und ließen sie wieder verschwinden. Und jetzt können Sie sich diesen Vorgang noch genauer vorstellen. Denken Sie sich, Sie hätten eine Zeitlang diese Reise hin und her gemacht, da würden Sie gemerkt haben, es gibt auf diesem Saturn jetzt Zeiten, in denen äußerlich gar keine Wärme wahrnehmbar ist, in denen nur das behagliche innere Feuer da ist; dann wiederum Zeiten, in denen diese Wärme-Eier auftreten. Sie hätten etwas wahrgenommen wie das Atmen des ganzen alten Saturn, aber ein FeuerAtmen. Sie hätten sich gesagt: Ich bin manchmal in diesem alten Saturn so drinnen, wie wenn alle äußerliche Wärme verinnerlicht, weggenommen wäre, wie wenn alles nur innerliche Behaglichkeit wäre, und Sie hätten sich gesagt: Jetzt hat der Saturn die Wärme eingeatmet. — Und dann wären Sie ein anderes Mal durchgekommen und hätten diese vielen Wärme-Eier gefunden, und Sie hätten gesagt: Jetzt hat der Saturn seine innere Wärme ausgeatmet, sie ist äußeres Feuer.
[ 8 ] Sehen Sie, diese Vorstellung haben die alten heiligen Rishis bei ihren Schülern hervorgerufen. Sie haben sie sozusagen im Geiste zurückversetzt in die alte Saturnzeit und haben sie empfinden lassen, wie ein ganzer Planet etwas vollzieht, das ähnlich ist wie unser heutiges Aus- und Einatmen. Sie haben in ihnen die Vorstellung hervorgerufen: Das Feuer fließt heraus und wird zu unzähligen Wärmeleibern, das Feuer wird eingesogen und wird innerliche Ichheit der Geister der Persönlichkeit. Daher haben sie dieses Leben eines Planeten verglichen mit einem Aus- und Einatmen, aber es ist zunächst auf dem alten Saturn nur ein Feuer-Atmen. Luft ist noch nicht vorhanden. Nehmen wir nun an, es wäre folgendes geschehen: alle diese Geister der Persönlichkeit auf dem Saturn hätten sozusagen immer Wärme eingeatmet und ausgeatmet. Da würden sie ihre regelmäßige Saturnentwickelung durchgemacht haben, und die Folge wäre gewesen, daß nach der entsprechenden Zeit alles wiederum hereingenommen worden wäre in innere Wärme, und der Saturn wäre als äußerer Feuerplanet verschwunden, wäre wieder aufgenommen worden in die Reiche der geistigen Welt. So hätte es geschehen können. Dann hätten wir allerdings niemals den Sonnen-, den Mond- und den Erdenzustand gehabt, denn es wäre alles, was hätte ausgeatmet werden können, wiederum zurückgenommen worden in innere Wärme, wäre zurückgekehrt in die geistige Welt. Aber nun wollen wir einen trivialen Ausdruck gebrauchen, der uns verständlicher werden wird: Es gefiel sozusagen gewissen Geistern der Persönlichkeit besser, nur einen Teil der ausgeatmeten Wärme wieder zurückzunehmen und immer etwas zurückzulassen, so daß also beim Einatmen alle diese SaturnEier draußen nicht verschwanden, sondern daß sie blieben. Und so stellte sich allmählich eine Zweiheit heraus auf dem Saturn: innerliche Wärme und daneben die äußere Wärme, in den Saturn-Eiern verkörpert. Es wurde nicht alles wieder zurückgenommen. Sozusagen überließen die Geister der Persönlichkeit einen Teil der ausgeatmeten Wärme sich selber, sie ließen sie da draußen. Warum taten sie das eigentlich? Das mußten sie tun; wenn sie es nicht getan hätten, dann wären sie auf dem Saturn gar nicht Menschen geworden.
[ 9 ] Denn was heißt Mensch werden? Das heißt: zum Ich-Bewußtsein kommen. Sie können das nicht, wenn Sie sich als Ich nicht von einem Äußeren unterscheiden. Nur dadurch sind Sie ein Ich. Der Blumenstrauß ist hier, ich bin da, ich unterscheide mich als Ich von dem Objekte. Die Geister der Persönlichkeit hätten ewig nur ihr Ich ausgeströmt, wenn sie nicht etwas draußen gelassen hätten, was ihnen Widerstand geleistet hätte: Das andere ist draußen, ich unterscheide mich von dem objektiv gemachten Wärme-Element. Dadurch sind die Geister der Persönlichkeit zu ihrem Ich, zum Selbstbewußtsein gekommen, daß sie einen Teil der Saturnwesenheiten hinabgedrängt haben in ein bloß äußeres Wärmedasein. Sie sagten sich: Ich muß etwas von mir nach außen strömen lassen und draußen lassen, damit ich mich davon unterscheiden kann, damit mein Ich-Bewußtsein sich entzündet an diesem Äußeren. So hatten sie also ein Reich neben sich geschaffen, sie hatten sich gleichsam ein Spiegelbild ihres Innern in dem Äußeren geschaffen. Dadurch kam es auch, daß, als sozusagen das Leben des Saturn abgelaufen war, die Geister der Persönlichkeit gar nicht in der Lage waren, den Saturn verschwinden zu lassen. Er wäre, wenn sie alles Feuer eingeatmet hätten, verschwunden; so aber waren sie nicht imstande, das, was sie hinausgesetzt hatten aus sich selbst, zurückzuatmen. Sie mußten das Feld, das ihnen die Möglichkeit geboten hatte, zum Selbstbewußtsein zu kommen, sich selbst überlassen.
[ 10 ] Für den Saturn hätte kein Pralayazustand eintreten können durch die Geister der Persönlichkeit allein. Da mußten höhere Geister eintreten, die mußten sozusagen das wieder auflösen, damit ein Pralaya, ein Zwischenzustand, ein Zustand des Verschwindens, des Schlafes eintrat. Höhere Geister, von denen wir jetzt nur den Namen anführen, die Throne, mußten eintreten und mußten alles das wieder auflösen. So daß, als das Leben des Saturn zu Ende ging, sich folgender Prozeß abspielte: Die Geister der Persönlichkeit hatten Selbstbewußstsein erlangt, hatten einen Teil der Wärme wiederum in sich aufgesogen, hatten in ihren Mittelpunkt das Selbstbewußtsein aufgenommen und hatten dafür zurückgelassen ein niederes Reich. Jetzt kam das Reich der Throne, und diese lösten, was jene übriggelassen hatten, auf, und der Saturn ging in eine Art Planetennacht ein. Nun kam der Planetenmorgen. Das Ganze sollte durch Gesetze, die wir noch kennenlernen werden, sozusagen wiederum aufwachen. Wäre der alte Saturn verschwunden durch das Einatmen der gesamten Wärme, so wäre alles Saturndasein in die geistige Welt aufgenommen worden. Ein Aufwachen wäre überhaupt nicht geschehen. Nun konnten die Throne zwar für eine Zeitlang auflösen, was die Geister der Persönlichkeit als Eier herausgesetzt hatten, aber sie konnten es nur für eine Zeit. Es mußte das gewissermaßen zu einer weiteren Entwickelung wiederum einem niedrigeren Dasein übergeben werden. Dadurch kam ein Planetenmorgen; der zweite Verwandlungszustand des Saturn trat ein, der Sonnenzustand. Was wurde denn da eigentlich herausgeboren jetzt in diesem Sonnenzustand? Herüber kamen nach dem Schlafzustand des Planeten vom alten Saturn die Geister der Persönlichkeit, die jetzt ihr Selbstbewußtsein hatten, die also nicht mehr darauf angewiesen waren, ähnliches durchzumachen, wie sie schon durchgemacht hatten. Aber sie hatten gewisse WärmeEier ausgeatmet, die kamen wiederum nach und nach heraus, die differenzierten sich heraus aus der allgemeinen Masse. Und die Folge war, daß jetzt diese Geister der Persönlichkeit sozusagen gebunden waren an dasjenige, was sie von sich hinterlassen hatten. Hätten sie alles in die geistige Welt hinaufgenommen, so wären sie nicht sonnengebunden gewesen, sie hätten nicht heruntersteigen müssen; so mußten sie es, denn sie hatten einen Teil ihres früheren eigenen Wesens zurückgelassen. Darum mußten sie sich kümmern, der zog sie Jetzt hinunter zu einem neuen planetarischen Dasein.
[ 11 ] Das war Karma des Saturn, das war Weltenkarma, kosmisches Karma. Weil die Geister der Persönlichkeit auf dem alten Saturn nicht alles in sich hineingenommen hatten, hatten sie sich das Karma bereitet, zurückkehren zu müssen: Sie fanden unten dasjenige, was sie angerichtet hatten, als eine Erbschaft des alten Saturn. Und was geschah nun, indem sich die Geister der Persönlichkeit jetzt befaßten, abgaben mit ihrem geschaffenen Karma? Dadurch geschah das, was ich gestern im allgemeinen charakterisiert habe: Die Wärme spaltete sich auf der einen Seite in Licht, auf der anderen in Rauch. Und so entstand im wiedererstandenen Saturn aus diesen Wärme-Eiern auf der einen Seite der neue Planet wie Gas, wie Luft oder wie Rauch, wie man es genannt hat, und auf der anderen Seite entstand Licht, indem die Wärme sozusagen wiederum zurückkehrte in höhere Zustände. Innerlich im verwandelten Saturn Rauch, Gas, Luft, auf der anderen Seite Licht! Und wären Sie jetzt auf einer Reise durch die Welt an den Ort gekommen, wo diese alte Sonne war, dann würden Sie schon von weitem dasjenige, was sich da als Licht gebildet hatte, gespürt haben, weil ja dahinter der Rauch war. Sie hätten, wenn auch nicht das Licht, aber eine leuchtende Kugel wahrgenommen, wie beim Saturn eine Wärmekugel. Eine leuchtende Kugel wäre es gewesen, an die Sie herangetreten wären, und wären Sie an die Oberfläche gekommen, hineingedrungen in diese Kugel, so würden Sie nicht nur Wärme wahrgenommen haben, sondern Winde, Luft, strömendes Gas nach allen Seiten hin. So hat sich die Wärmekugel zu einer Leuchtekugel verwandelt: Es ist eine Sonne entstanden. Mit völligem Rechte nennt man das eine Sonne. Und was heute Sonnen sind, die machen heute noch diesen Prozeß durch: Die sind heute innerlich strömendes Gas, und nach der anderen Seite bewirken sie, daß dieses Gas zum Licht wird; sie verbreiten Licht in den Weltenraum. Jetzt war also eigentlich erst das Licht in dem Verwandlungszustande der Erde gebildet, jetzt war erst Licht entstanden. In der Wärme, in der alten Saturnwärme, da konnten zunächst die Geister der Persönlichkeit Mensch werden; in dem Licht, das jetzt von der Sonne ausstrahlte, da konnten Mensch werden diejenigen Wesenheiten der geistigen Hierarchien, die wir Erzengel oder Archangeloi nennen. Und Sie würden in der Tat, wenn Sie nicht nur wie ein heutiger Mensch sich der Sonne genähert hätten, sondern wie ein hellseherischer, Sie würden nicht nur Leuchten wahrgenommen haben, das von der Sonne ausgeht, nicht bloß Licht, sondern es wären Ihnen entgegengeströmt im Lichte die Taten der Erzengel.
[ 12 ] Aber es haben sozusagen diese Erzengel etwas mit in Kauf nehmen müssen. Die alten Geister der Persönlichkeit haben auf dem Saturn noch das reine Feuer gefunden. Die Erzengel, die erst auf der Sonne Mensch werden konnten, haben jetzt auf der Sonne, die sie bewohnen mußten, Rauch, Gas gefunden. Was mußten sie nun tun, um mit der Sonne in festem Zusammenhange zu bleiben, um da ihren Wohnplatz aufzuschlagen? Sie bildeten sich ihre Seele, ihr Inneres aus dem Licht, sie woben sich ihren Seelenleib aus Licht, gliederten aber diesem Seelenleibe dasjenige, was als Gas da war, als den äußeren Leib ein. Wie Sie heute also Leib und Seele haben, so hatten diese Erzengel als Menschen auf der Sonne ein Inneres, das imstande war, Licht auszuströmen, und ein Äußeres, einen physischen Leib, der aus Gas, aus Luft bestand. Wie heute der Mensch in seinem Leib aus Erde, Wasser, Luft und Feuer besteht, so bestanden diese Erzengel aus Luft, und innerlich hatten sie Licht. Aber es war natürlich das Element des Feuers mit herübergenommen worden, denn gerade das war es, was sich zu Rauch und Licht entwickelte. Daher hatten diese Erzengel auch Feuer in sich. Ihre gesamte Wesenheit bestand also aus Licht, Rauch und Feuer. Sie hätten die Erzengel angetroffen in Leibern, gewoben aus Gas, Feuer und Licht. Durch das Licht lebten sie ein Leben nach außen, strömten sie in den Weltenraum hinaus die leuchtende Kraft. Durch das Feuer lebten sie ein Leben in ihrem eigenen Innern, die Behaglichkeit der Wärme. Durch das Leben im Gas-Leib lebten sie ein Leben im Sonnenplaneten selber. Sie konnten jetzt sozusagen im Sonnenplaneten von der allgemeinen Sonnensubstanz ihren eigenen Gas-Leib unterscheiden. Sie stießen mit dem anderen zusammen: dadurch entzündete sich für sie eine Art Selbstbewußtsein. Aber nur dadurch konnte sich dieses Selbstbewußtsein höher und höher gestalten, daß es nun auch diesen Erzengeln, wenn wir so sagen dürfen, besser gefiel, in diesem GasLeib, im Rauch-Leib in gewisser Beziehung zu verbleiben oder ihn wenigstens zu belassen in der Sonnensubstanz. Denn diese Erzengel auf der alten Sonne hätten in wechselndem Zustand wiederum den ganzen Rauch, das ganze Gas, das sozusagen in der Umgebung war, in sich aufnehmen können. Jetzt haben Sie einen wirklichen Armungsprozeß! Auf der alten Sonne würden Sie diese Strömungen im Gas wie einen Atmungsprozeß wahrgenommen haben. Sie würden gewisse Zustände gefunden haben, wo absolute Windstille war, und Sie hätten sich gesagt: Jetzt haben die Erzengel alles strömende Gas eingeatmet. - Dann aber begannen die Erzengel wieder herauszuatmen: Es fing an, innerlich zu strömen und damit zu gleicher Zeit sich Licht zu entwickeln. Das war der Wechselzustand der Sonne: Es atmeten die Erzengel ein das gesamte Gas — Windstille war da, dafür auch Dunkelheit, Sonnennacht. Sie atmeten aus - die Sonne erfüllte sich mit strömendem Rauch, dafür auch erglänzte sie nach außen, es wurdeSonnentag. Und so gab es einen wirklichen Atmungsprozeß des ganzen Sonnenleibes: Ausatmen — Sonnentag, Beleuchten der Umwelt; Einatmen - Sonnennacht, Dunkelwerden in der ganzen Umwelt.
[ 13 ] Hier haben Sie die alte Sonne zugleich in ihrem Unterschied geschildert von unserer jetzigen Sonne. Unsere jetzige Sonne leuchtet immer, und die Dunkelheit wird nur bewirkt, wenn sich etwas vor ihr Licht hinstellt. Das war bei der alten Sonne eben nicht so. Sie hatte in sich selbst die Kraft, in abwechselnden Zuständen hell und dunkel zu werden, aufzuleuchten und sich zu verfinstern, denn das war ihr Ausatmen und Einatmen. Nun stellen wir uns so ganz lebhaft vor, was da eigentlich, nun sagen wir, äußerlich, sichtbarlich geschehen war.
[ 14 ] Nehmen wir diesen Zustand des Ausatmens: Licht verbreitet sich, dafür aber auch erfüllt sich die Sonne mit Rauch. Diese Rauchgestalten, diese Rauchströmungen sind regelmäßige Gebilde. Es ist also sozusagen eingeschaltet in der Sonnensubstanz beim jedesmaligen Ausatmen eine Summe von regelmäßigen Gebilden. Dasjenige, was früher bloß Eiform hatte, Wärme-Ei war, hatte sich zu allerlei regelmäßigen Gebilden umgestaltet. Ganz sonderbare Rauchgebilde mit innerem Leben und innerer Regelmäßigkeit waren entstanden. Wenn ich mich des Ausdruckes bedienen darf: Die Eier sind ausgebrütet worden. Es war wirklich etwas, was sich vergleichen läßt mit diesem verfestigenden Prozeß. So wie das Hühnchen herauskommt aus dem Hühnerei, so war das Wärme-Ei entzweigegangen und heraus waren gekommen regelmäßige Rauchgestalten, und diese regelmäßigen Rauchgestalten waren die dichtesten Leiber, welche die Erzengel hatten. In Rauch-, in Gas-, in Luft-Leibern belebten sie die Sonne; so wandelten sie als Menschen sozusagen auf der Sonne herum. Jetzt haben wir also den geistigen Begriff eines Fixsternes, den geistigen Begriff einer Weltensonne, die sozusagen durch ihre eigene Macht Sonne ist, die Tag und Nacht wechseln läßt durch ihre eigene Macht. Wie Aus- und Einatmen läßt sie wechseln Helligkeit und Dunkelheit, denn die Sonne war dazumal eine Art Fixstern. Alles, was selbstleuchtend ist in unserem Weltenraum, das sendet in den Weltenraum mit dem Licht auch hinaus das Leben von geistigen Boten: Archangeloi.
[ 15 ] Was hatten also die ursprünglichen Archai, die Urbeginne, die Geister der Persönlichkeit durch ihre eigene Entwickelung bewirkt, was hatten sie hergestellt? Daß überhaupt eine Sonne hat hervortreten können. Während sich sonst nur ein Saturndasein in der Evolution angekündigt hätte, während sonst nur die den Saturn mit Wärme erfüllenden Archai gewesen wären, ist dadurch, daß die Archai die äußeren Wärme-Eier dem Saturn überlassen haben, der Saturn zur Sonne geworden. Und auf der Sonne fanden die Erzengel die Möglichkeit, die Menschheitsstufe durchzumachen. Sie wurden für die Welt die Verkündiger, die sagen konnten: Uns sind die Urbeginne, die Geister der Persönlichkeit, vorangegangen. Wir verkünden als die Boten dem Universum im strahlenden Lichte das ehemalige Dasein des warmen, des innerlich durchwärmten Saturn. Wir sind die Boten, die Verkündiger der Archai. — Bote heißt Angelos, Archai heißt die Anfänge; es waren also diese Erzengel nichts anderes als die Boten von den Taten der Urbeginne oder Archai in früherer Zeit. Und daher heißen sie die Engel des Anfanges, Archai-Angeloi, was dann zum deutschen Wort Erzengel geworden ist. So sind sie, diese Erzboten, die Menschen der Sonne gewesen.
Third Lecture
[ 1 ] Yesterday, at the end of the lecture about the lowest realm, so to speak, of the spiritual hierarchies, thoughts arose in many a soul and many questions arose. And that is only natural, because compared to the thinking and imagining that a person can have today, much of what has been said seems questionable and inexplicable at first. The course of the lectures will naturally shed light on many things. But one thing must be said today so that you have, so to speak, a guideline for the whole attitude that one should have towards such a matter. Today, for example, a person can ask himself the obvious question: Yes, if you really do lift an enchanted being out of a stone by thinking and pondering about the stone and then, as it were, freeing this enchanted being, what then remains in the stone? Is this being still in the stone, or what has actually happened in the stone? What about the second person who follows and undergoes the same process? This question could arise for many things. As I said, many such questions will be answered in the course of the lectures, but it must be said that these things cannot be grasped at all with what the earth gives man to think. For on earth everything is veiled, everything is clothed in maya, and to the mind things look quite different than they are in reality. It is not the fault of the facts that questions remain unanswered. The questions are wrongly posed, but in time we will gain the measure for the right way to ask them. Things look quite different when we gain insight into conditions that are not yet shrouded in illusion. On earth, everything is interwoven; as a result, people's thinking is constantly deceived. We get purer ideas of things when we go back to older times.
[ 2 ] Just as man undergoes embodiment after embodiment, metamorphosis after metamorphosis, so all beings in the world undergo embodiments and re-embodiments, from the smallest to the greatest, and even a being like our earth itself, a planetary being, undergoes re-embodiments. Our Earth did not come into being as an Earth, but was preceded by another state. Especially in our circles, there has always been a lot of talk about the fact that just as a person in this existence is the re-embodiment of a previous life, the Earth is also the re-embodiment of an old planet that preceded it. We call this previous planet the moon and do not mean the present moon, which is only a piece, a remnant of the old moon, but a previous state of our earth, which once was there and also went through a spiritual life, which is usually called Pralaya, as man goes through a spiritual state after death. This moon planet has been reborn, just as man is reborn. But what we have just described as the planetary state of the moon is in turn only the embodiment of a previous planetary state, which we call the sun. This sun, not the present sun, but a completely different being, this sun is the re-embodiment of the last planet to which we have to look back first when we speak of the embodiments of our earth, the ancient Saturn. So we have four successive embodiments: Saturn, the sun, the moon, the earth.
[ 3 ] We have also mentioned several times that each planetary state has a specific task. What is our Earth's task? The task of our Earth is to make man's human existence possible, as we call it today. All the effects of the Earth are such that through them man becomes an ego-being. This was not the case in earlier stages of development. Man has only become a human being in the modern sense on earth. The earlier planetary stages through which the earth has passed had a similar task. Other entities became human on these other planets, entities that are now even higher than man. You may remember from my book “Christianity as Mystical Fact” that an Egyptian sage once made a remarkable allusion to the Greek Solon about a mystery truth; that he told him that it was an important truth that the gods were once human. This was one of the truths that mystery school students in ancient times had to learn: that the gods, who today dwell in the spiritual heights, were not always gods, but that they have ascended and that they too were once human beings, that they too once passed through the stages of humanity. Of course, a dangerous truth immediately follows from this, which the mystery school students also had to draw from it as a consequence: namely, that human beings will one day become gods. And precisely because of this consequence, this truth was considered dangerous; for it is necessary to say at the same time: Man can only become God when he is mature enough to do so; and if he ever imagines that he can find God within himself before he is mature enough to do so, he will not become a god, but a fool. And so for man these two paths are open: to live in patience, as Dionysius calls it, towards deification, towards becoming God, or to imagine beforehand that he is already God. The one path really leads to deification, the other to folly, to madness.
[ 4 ] In the expressions of antiquity, something misleading is often seen because in our present time, no distinction is made between the different levels of divine-spiritual entities. When the Egyptian sage spoke of gods, he did not mean just one level of god or gods, but entire levels of divine spiritual entities. Dionysius the Areopagite and also the Eastern sages, they have always distinguished these levels of divine spiritual entities. Whether we speak of angels or of Dhyan Chohans, it is the same, because those who really recognize the unity of the world's wisdom know that these are only different names for one thing. But even in this realm one must distinguish again. Those entities, which are initially invisible and which stand directly above man, that is, which stand one level higher than man, are called in Christian esotericism angels, angeloi, messengers, that is, messengers of the divine spiritual world. Those entities, which in turn stand one level higher, that is, two levels higher than man, are called archangels, archangeloi, also fire spirits. Those entities, which in turn, when they undergo their normal development, stand one step higher than the archangels, are the entities called Spirits of Personality or Primordial Beginnings, Primordial Forces, Archai. So, first of all, we have three levels of entities that stand above human beings. These three types of entities have all gone through humanity; they were once human beings. Beings who are now angels, if you look at it in terms of world time, have not left their humanity so far behind them; they were human beings on the Moon. Just as you can live on Earth as human beings due to the conditions on Earth, the angels in their stage of humanity could inhabit the Moon. The archangels experienced their stage of humanity on the Sun, and the original beginnings, the spirits of personality, on the old Saturn. So these entities have gradually advanced from humanity, are now higher entities in higher levels of the hierarchy than humans, and we can simply say, when we now list the levels of the world empires in a spiritual sense: We have on Earth the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and now it goes up into the invisible, into the realm of the angels, the fire spirits or archangels, the elemental forces or spirits of personality or archai. As these entities progressed in their inner development and nature, so to speak, from humans to gods or to messengers of the gods – which is actually an accurate term for these entities – as these entities ascended into a spiritual existence, the conditions of the planet on and for which they lived changed. If we look back to ancient Saturn, on which the Archai were human beings, we find it still looking quite different from our Earth.
[ 5 ] Yesterday we spoke about the fact that we distinguish four elements on our Earth: Earth, water, air, fire or warmth. Of the first three elements, there was absolutely nothing on Saturn at all. Of these four elements, only fire or warmth existed on Saturn. Today's materialistic philosopher will say: But warmth can only come from external objects; there can be warm solids, warm water, but warmth cannot exist by itself. That is what the materialistic philosopher believes, but it is not true. If you had been able to observe Saturn with today's senses, how would it have presented itself? Suppose – we assume this as a hypothesis – you had flown through space in the old Saturn era. You would not have seen anything where old Saturn was; but you would have noticed that it was warm there! It would have felt like flying through the heated space of an oven when you flew through Saturn. You would not have been able to feel a draft, you would not have been able to swim, because there was no air or water yet; you would not have been able to walk either, because there was no earth yet. Your hand would not have been able to touch anything; it was just the whole sphere of warmth. Thus, ancient Saturn consisted only of the element of warmth or fire. Our earthly existence began in its first metamorphosis as a planet of warmth, and from this you can already see how it is right when, for example, ancient Heraclitus says: Everything has arisen from fire. — Yes, of course! Because the Earth is only the transformed old Saturn, everything on Earth has also come out of this fire. This was a truth that Heraclitus had from the ancient mysteries. This is also hinted at by saying that he dedicated the book in which he had written down this truth to the goddess at Ephesus and laid it on the altar there. This means that he was aware that he owed this wisdom to the mysteries, the Ephesian mysteries, where this teaching of the primal fire of Saturn was still proclaimed in its purity. Now you can also see from this that those beings whom we call the primal beginnings, the archai, the spirits of the personality, went through their humanity under completely different circumstances than today's human beings. Today, human beings have the opportunity to take in solids, liquids and gases through their physical bodies, through their bone and blood systems. The human being of Saturn, the spirit of personality, had to form his entire body out of warmth, out of fire. And that is what he did: he had only one fire body, the spirit of personality on ancient Saturn. His body consisted only of warmth.
[ 6 ] Yesterday I told you that warmth has two sides, so to speak. One side is that it is actually perceived inwardly as inward warmth; we feel warm or cold without touching our surroundings as we do with solids. But we can also feel warmth outwardly when we touch a warm body. The peculiar thing about the development of Saturn is that, so to speak, warmth gradually changes from the beginning of Saturn, where it was merely internal, to the end, where it becomes more external and more perceptible. If you had made this journey through the world in the initial state of Saturn, then you would not have felt any warmth on your skin when you entered the realm of Saturn, but inwardly you would have said to yourself: It is so comfortably warm. Something that you only know today as warmth of soul would have overcome you if you had made this journey in the very earliest stages of Saturn. You can get an idea of the experiences you would have had if you consider the following. You know that there is a difference when you look at a red or a blue surface. When you face the red color, you say to yourself, “This gives a warm feeling.” When you face the blue, you have the feeling of cold. Imagine these feelings that are triggered in the human soul by the impression of red, which you would not have had at the time, but you would have felt something comfortably warm when you face the red today. At the end of the Saturn period, you would not only have felt this inner sense of comfort, but also as if warmth had approached you from the outside. Inner warmth would have gradually transformed into an external perception of warmth. This is the path that Saturn took: from an inner warmth of soul to an externally perceptible warmth, to what we call external warmth or fire. And one would like to say: Just as the child grows up to become a great human being and undergoes various things, so the spirits of the personality grew on the old Saturn. At first they felt warm inside, so to speak, comfortably warm inside, and gradually they also felt this warmth externalized, realized, even embodied, we could say. And what emerged? If you want to visualize what emerged, then you have to imagine it like this: First of all, we have the internal warming of the sphere of Saturn; here the spirits of the personality find the opportunity to embody themselves first. As they embody themselves, what is called the outer warmth is formed. And if you had been able to make the journey in a later Saturn state, you would have been able to distinguish between externally warm and cold spots in Saturn. And if you had now drawn what you found as enclosed heat bodies, the following drawing would have resulted: In the surrounding area, it is as if a whole series of such heat eggs had formed a surface of Saturn. From the outside, if one could have seen it, it would have looked like a blackberry or a raspberry. What were these eggs? They were the bodies of the spirits of the personality, and these spirits of the personality, precisely through their inner warmth, formed the outer warmth of these Saturn eggs. Of this state, one can truly say: And the spirits brooded over the warmth, and they really hatched the first fire bodies. The first fire bodies were hatched from the cosmic space. If we may use the expression, the outer warmth eggs coagulated in the warmth space from the inside out. So, on ancient Saturn, the spirits of personality, the archai, also called asuras, were embodied in these fire bodies. Saturn consisted only of this element of fire.
[ 7 ] Now, in this old Saturn development, there was the possibility for the spirits of personality to transform the outer warmth into inner warmth. The process was not stiff and hard, but inwardly flexible. In fact, these spirits of personality continually generated these warmth-eggs and allowed them to disappear again. And now you can imagine this process even more clearly. Imagine that you had been making this journey back and forth for some time. You would have noticed that there are now times on this Saturn when no external warmth is perceptible, when only the cozy inner fire is there; then again, there are times when these warmth-eggs appear. You would have perceived something like the breathing of the whole old Saturn, but a breathing of fire. You would have said to yourself: Sometimes I am so immersed in this old Saturn, as if all external warmth had been internalized, taken away, as if it were all just inner comfort, and you would have said to yourself: Now Saturn has inhaled the warmth. And then you would have come through another time and found these many warm eggs, and you would have said: Now Saturn has exhaled its inner warmth, it is outer fire.
[ 8 ] This is the picture which the ancient Holy Rishis presented to their disciples. They took them back, as it were, in spirit, to the ancient Saturn time and made them feel how a whole planet performs something similar to our present inhaling and exhaling. They evoked the idea in them: the fire flows out and becomes countless warmth bodies, the fire is drawn in and becomes the internal egoity of the spirits of the personality. Therefore they compared this life of a planet with breathing out and breathing in, but on ancient Saturn it is only breathing of fire. Air does not yet exist. Let us now assume that the following had happened: all these spirits of personality on Saturn had always inhaled and exhaled warmth, so to speak. They would have gone through their regular Saturn evolution, and the consequence would have been that after the appropriate time everything would have been absorbed again into inner warmth, and Saturn would have disappeared as an outer fire planet, would have been taken up again into the realms of the spiritual world. That is how it could have happened. But then we would never have had the state of the sun, moon and earth, because everything that could have been exhaled would have been taken back into inner warmth, would have returned to the spiritual world. But now let us use a trivial expression that will make it easier for us to understand: It pleased certain spirits of the personality, so to speak, better to take back only part of the exhaled warmth and always to leave something behind, so that when inhaling all these Saturn eggs did not disappear outside, but remained. And so a duality gradually emerged on Saturn: inner warmth and, alongside it, outer warmth, embodied in the Saturn eggs. Not everything was taken back. The spirits left a part of the exhaled warmth to itself, so to speak, they left it out there. Why did they do that? They had to do that; if they hadn't, they wouldn't have become human on Saturn.
[ 9 ] For what does it mean to become human? It means to become aware of the self. You cannot do that if you, as a self, are not distinguished from an external object. Only in this way are you a self. The bouquet of flowers is here, I am there, I distinguish myself as a self from the object. The spirits of the personality would have eternally radiated only their ego if they had not left something outside that would have resisted them: the other is outside, I distinguish myself from the objectified warmth element. In this way, the spirits of the personality have come to their ego, to self-awareness, that they have pushed part of the Saturn entities down into a mere external warmth existence. They said to themselves: I must let something of me flow outwards and leave it outside, so that I can distinguish myself from it, so that my sense of self is ignited by this exterior. Thus they had created a realm alongside themselves; they had, as it were, created a mirror image of their inner selves in the outer realm. As a result, when the life of Saturn had come to an end, so to speak, the spirits of the personality were not at all able to make Saturn disappear. It would have disappeared if they had breathed in all the fire, but in this way they were unable to breathe back what they had put out of themselves. They had to leave the field, which had offered them the opportunity to become self-aware, to themselves.
[ 10 ] For Saturn, no pralaya could have occurred through the spirits of personality alone. Higher spirits had to enter, so to speak, to dissolve it again, so that a pralaya, an intermediate state, a state of disappearance, of sleep, could occur. Higher spirits, of whom we now mention only the name, the Thrones, had to enter and had to dissolve everything again. So that when the life of Saturn came to an end, the following process took place: the spirits of personality had attained self-awareness, had absorbed some of the warmth into themselves again, had taken up self-awareness at their center and had left behind a lower realm for it. Now the realm of the thrones came, and these dissolved what the others had left behind, and Saturn entered into a kind of planetary night. Now the planetary morning came. The whole thing was to wake up again, so to speak, through laws that we will get to know. If the old Saturn had disappeared through the inhalation of all the warmth, then all Saturn existence would have been absorbed into the spiritual world. There would have been no waking up at all. Now the Thrones could indeed dissolve what the spirits of personality had laid down as eggs for a while, but they could only do so for a time. It had to be handed over to a lower existence, so to speak, for further development. Then a planetary morning came; Saturn entered its second state of transformation, the solar state. What was actually born out of this in this solar state? After the sleeping state of the planet, the spirits of personality came over from the old Saturn, who now had their self-awareness, so they no longer needed to go through similar experiences to the ones they had already gone through. But they had exhaled certain warmth, which in turn came out little by little, differentiating itself from the general mass. And the result was that now these spirits of personality were bound, so to speak, to what they had left behind of themselves. If they had taken everything up into the spiritual world, they would not have been bound to the sun; they would not have had to descend; so they had to, because they had left behind part of their former own being. That was what they had to take care of, and that drew them down to a new planetary existence.
[ 11 ] This was karma of Saturn, this was world karma, cosmic karma. Because the spirits of the personality had not taken everything into themselves on the old Saturn, they had prepared the karma for themselves to have to return: they found below what they had caused, as an inheritance of old Saturn. And what happened now that the spirits of the personality were dealing with their created karma? As a result, what I characterized in general yesterday happened: On the one hand, the warmth split into light, and on the other into smoke. And so, in the resurrected Saturn, the new planet emerged from these warmth-eggs on the one hand, like gas, like air or like smoke, as one had called it. And on the other hand, light emerged, with the warmth, so to speak, returning to higher states. Inside the transformed Saturn, smoke, gas, air, on the other hand, light! And if you had now been traveling through the world and come to the place where this old sun was, you would have sensed from afar what had formed as light, because behind it was the smoke. You would have perceived, if not the light, then at least a glowing sphere, like a heat sphere in Saturn. It would have been a glowing sphere if you had approached it, and if you had come to the surface, entered this sphere, you would have perceived not only warmth but also winds, air, flowing gas in all directions. So the glowing sphere transformed into a luminous sphere: a sun was created. It is completely right to call it a sun. And what are now suns are still undergoing this process today: on the inside they are flowing gas, and on the other side they cause this gas to become light; they spread light into space. So now, only now was light actually formed in the state of transformation of the earth, only now was light created. In the warmth, in the old warmth of Saturn, the spirits of personality could first become human; in the light that now radiated from the sun, those entities of the spiritual hierarchies that we call archangels or archangeloi could become human. And if you had approached the sun not only as a modern human being, but as a clairvoyant, you would not only have perceived the radiance emanating from the sun, not just light, but the deeds of the archangels would have flowed towards you in the light.
[ 12 ] But these archangels had to accept something, so to speak. The ancient spirits of personality still found pure fire on Saturn. The archangels, who could only become human on the sun, now found smoke and gas on the sun, which they had to inhabit. What did they have to do to remain in a firm connection with the sun, to set up their home there? They formed their soul, their inner being, out of light, they wove their soul body out of light, but incorporated what was there as gas, as the outer body. Just as you today have a body and soul, so these archangels as human beings on the sun had an inner being that was capable of emitting light, and an outer being, a physical body, that consisted of gas, of air. Just as a human being today consists of earth, water, air and fire in his body, so these archangels consisted of air, and inwardly they had light. But of course the element of fire had been taken over with them, because that was precisely what developed into smoke and light. Therefore, these archangels also had fire within them. Their entire being consisted of light, smoke and fire. We would have found the archangels in bodies woven from gas, fire and light. Through the light they lived a life outwards, streaming out into the universe their radiant power. Through the fire they lived a life within themselves, the comfort of warmth. Through the life in the gas body they lived a life in the sun planet itself. They could now, so to speak, distinguish their own gas body from the general sun substance in the sun planet. They collided with the other: this kindled a kind of self-awareness for them. But this self-awareness could only develop higher and higher because it now also pleased these archangels, if we may call them that, to remain in this gas body, in the smoke body, in a certain relationship, or at least to leave it in the sun substance. For these archangels on the old sun could have absorbed all the smoke, all the gas, so to speak, in the surrounding area, in a changing state. Now you have a real process of armung! On the old sun you would have perceived these currents in the gas as a breathing process. You would have found certain conditions where there was absolute calm, and you would have said to yourself: Now the archangels have inhaled all the flowing gas. But then the archangels began to breathe out again: It began to flow inwardly and at the same time light developed. That was the state of change in the sun: The archangels inhaled all the gas – there was no wind, but there was also darkness, a solar night. They exhaled – the sun was filled with billowing smoke, but it also shone outwards, it became a sunny day. And so there was a real breathing process of the whole solar body: exhaling – sunny day, illuminating the environment; inhaling – sunny night, darkness in the whole environment.
[ 13 ] Here you have the old sun described at the same time in its difference from our present sun. Our present sun is always shining, and darkness is only caused when something is placed in front of its light. That was not the case with the old sun. It had the power within itself to become light and dark in alternating states, to light up and darken, because that was its exhaling and inhaling. Now let us imagine very vividly what actually happened, let us say, outwardly, visibly.
[ 14 ] Let us take this state of exhalation: light spreads, but the sun is also filled with smoke. These smoke forms, these smoke currents are regular formations. So, so to speak, a sum of regular formations is incorporated into the substance of the sun with each exhalation. What used to be merely egg-shaped, a warmth egg, had transformed itself into all kinds of regular formations. Very strange smoke formations with inner life and inner regularity had emerged. If I may use the expression: the eggs have been hatched. It was really something that can be compared to this solidifying process. Just as the chicken comes out of the chicken egg, so the warmth egg had broken in two and out of it came regular smoke figures, and these regular smoke figures were the densest bodies that the archangels had. In bodies of smoke, gas and air, they animated the sun; so they walked as men, so to speak, on the sun. So now we have the spiritual concept of a fixed star, the spiritual concept of a world sun, which is sun, so to speak, through its own power, which allows day and night to change through its own power. Like breathing out and breathing in, it alternates between brightness and darkness, because the sun was once a kind of fixed star. Everything that is self-illuminating in our cosmic space also sends out the life of spiritual messengers into cosmic space with the light: archangeloi.
[ 15 ] So what had the original archai, the primal beginnings, the spirits of personality brought about through their own evolution? What had they created? That a sun could emerge at all. Whereas otherwise only a Saturn existence would have been announced in evolution, whereas otherwise only the Archai filling Saturn with warmth would have been, the fact that the Archai left the outer warmth-eggs to Saturn allowed Saturn to become a sun. And on the sun, the archangels found the opportunity to pass through the stage of humanity. They became the heralds for the world who could say: We have been preceded by the origins, the spirits of personality. We proclaim as the messengers to the universe in the radiant light the former existence of warm, inwardly warmed Saturn. We are the messengers, the heralds of the Archai. Messenger means Angelos, Archai means the beginnings; so these archangels were nothing other than the messengers of the deeds of the primal beginnings or Archai in earlier times. And that is why they are called the angels of the beginning, Archai-Angeloi, which then became the German word Erzengel. So they, these arch messengers, were the people of the sun.