The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today we come to a chapter in the presentation of the higher beings and their relationship to our world and solar system, which actually belongs to those chapters that must be most distasteful to the modern man who informs himself about the world and its conditions from ordinary popular science, because it will have to touch on things about which the modern scientist can imagine absolutely nothing. Of course, this is by no means mutual, but anyone who is established on the ground of occultism can thoroughly survey the facts of modern science from his point of view. And nowhere will you find any contradiction between what has been said in these lectures and the facts of modern science, only sometimes, of course, the harmony is not so easy to establish. But those of you who are patient and follow everything bit by bit will see how the individual things come together to form a whole.

[ 2 ] On this occasion, it may perhaps also be said that some of what is also said here in these lectures has been illuminated from a different angle, say in the lecture cycle of Stuttgart, of Leipzig, and anyone who takes these cycles externally and compares them can really find some contradictions between this or that statement. This is due solely to the fact that it is my task in these lectures not to speak about speculative theories but about the facts of clairvoyant consciousness, and that facts do indeed look different when viewed from one side and when viewed from the other. By way of comparison, a tree that you paint from one side will look different from a tree that you paint from the other side, and yet it is the same tree. It is the same with the description of spiritual facts when they are illuminated from different sides. Of course, if a few concepts are taken as a starting point and a system is constructed from them, then it is easy to set up an abstract system from the outset; but we work from the bottom up, and the harmonious unity will then emerge as a crowning glory. In particular, however, we must always reflect on the sense and direction in which each statement is made. For example, if it is said that in a popular work we find that air, gas in Jupiter must be as dense as tar or honey and that from the point of view of spiritual science this is in some respects even a grotesque idea - and the figure of speech that I used, was intended to suggest the grotesque nature of the matter, then from the standpoint of today's science one can certainly say: Don't you know that at the present time physics can produce air in a state as dense as honey or tar? Of course, that is a self-evident fact of science, but that is not the point, because that is not the line of thought here. What science calls air can certainly be condensed in this way; but for a spiritual scientific consideration, it is no different than another case of water being made as hard as a stone, namely into ice. Of course ice is water, but the question is whether we look at things in their living functions or in the dead sense of today's science. That ice is water is self-evident, but if someone who is used to moving his mill with water all year round were advised to move his mill with ice, what would he say? So it is not the abstract idea that ice is water that matters, but understanding the activity of the cosmos. Quite different points of view must prevail than in the abstract conversation about the purely material metamorphosis in relation to density. Just as you cannot drive mills with ice, you cannot, of course, breathe in air that is as thick as honey or tar. And that is what matters in spiritual scientific observation. For we do not observe the cosmic spheres in the way they are observed today, as those material lumps of a certain size that move around in space and in which modern astronomical mythology sees only spheres of a material nature, we observe them in their living, spiritual and mental existence, we observe them, in other words, in their totality. It is in this totality that we must consider what we call the genesis of the individual world bodies in the spiritual-scientific sense. And now, as the first example of the genesis of a world body, let us choose old Saturn, the old Saturn from which we know that our evolution proceeded. I have already told you that this old Saturn was initially as large as our entire present-day solar system. So what is called, in the broader sense, the old Saturn in its initial state, is about as large as our entire solar system. Only, we do not have to imagine this old Saturn as a material sphere. We know that it has nothing at all of the three material states that we call solid, liquid and gaseous today, but that it consists only of warmth or fire. And now let us imagine that this ancient ball of heat is a circle. You will also remember that we said: where this ball of Saturn has developed into the sphere of the sun, those beings that make up the zodiac clearly appear around the sphere of the sun. But I already indicated at the time that this zodiac, even if it was not yet as dense or compact as it was during the existence of the sun, was already around the old Saturn. So we think of the throne of power, cherubim and seraphim in the vicinity of the old Saturn, and these are actually the zodiac in the spiritual sense. This line is the zodiac in the spiritual sense. You may ask: How does this correspond to the present-day designation of the zodiac? Oh, it corresponds perfectly, as we will see in the course of the next lectures. For now, just imagine the following: Imagine you could stand at a certain point on this old globe of Saturn. Now, if you raise your hand and point outwards with your finger, then above this point is the region of certain thrones, cherubim and seraphim. If you move a little further and point outwards, then at the point to which you are pointing is another of the thrones, cherubim and seraphim, for these three groups of beings form a ring around old Saturn. And now imagine you wanted to indicate the direction in which certain thrones, cherubim and seraphim are located. They are not all the same, they are not like twelve completely identical soldiers, but one differs considerably from the other; they are all individualized, so that you point to different entities when you point out from different points. And so that one can point, so to speak, to the right of the thrones, cherubim, seraphim, one marks this by a certain star constellation. So that is a brand. And now one says: in this direction lie the thrones, cherubim, seraphim, which are called Gemini, in another direction lie those which are called Leo, and so on. These are, as it were, markers to indicate the direction in which the beings in question are located. We initially take the peculiar star constellations as such markers. They are something else, but first of all we have to realize that we are dealing with spiritual beings when we speak of the zodiac.

[ 3 ] Now, first of all, the Thrones exert their influence on this fiery structure, which we call old Saturn. The Thrones have developed to such an extent that they can let their own substance flow out. They let their warmth substance, so to speak, trickle into this Saturn mass. As a result, as I have told you, these formations arise all around, which we have somewhat grotesquely called 'eggs'. It is a bit grotesque, but they really do have this shape.

[ 4 ] Now you may ask: What about the substance? Was there a warm substance there before? - What was there before can only be described as a kind of neutral cosmic fire, which is basically one with the universe, so I might just as well say: In the beginning there was only space, which had been demarcated, and now something is being instilled into the surface that can be called the warmth substance of old Saturn. At the moment when this warmth substance is instilled into old Saturn, the beings that come into question are also active from both sides. We have already said: here in the interior of the Saturn space we find the forces or spirits of form, the spirits of movement or powers and dominions or the spirits of wisdom. They are active within. From the outside in, cherubim, seraphim, thrones are active, and the consequence of this is that an interaction takes place between the entities from the outside and the entities from the inside.

[ 5 ] In the first lecture it was said that one can distinguish between the inner, soul fire, which one feels as inner warmth, and the outwardly perceptible fire. Between the two lies the neutral warmth in the middle. This neutral warmth is actually contained here in this egg shape. In contrast, above it we find the soul warmth, as if radiating in from the outside, but holding back. It is as if the soul warmth radiates in from the outside, but holds back in front of what is there inside as neutral fire; the actually perceptible warmth is repelled from the inside. So that you have actually enclosed what was previously drawn as a ball of warmth between two currents, an external soul-heat current and an internal heat current that would be perceptible to an external sense. Thus only that which is within is physically perceptible as warmth. And now, through the interaction of external and internal warmth, each such Saturn egg begins to rotate. Each such Saturn egg goes all around and comes under the effect of each of the thrones, seraphim and cherubim that are around it. And now something very peculiar occurs. Imagine that this egg, during its journey, finally arrives at the point where it was originally created – as I said, I am reporting the facts of spiritual scientific observation. Each such egg is created at a specific point, then wanders around the circle and is stopped when it comes to the place where it was created. But the generation lasts only up to a certain point in time, then it stops, then no more warmth-eggs are generated. When all these eggs are now held at the one point, they fall on top of each other, so to speak, all of them, by coming into contact, form a single egg. So at the point where the eggs are originally created, they finally stop, there they come to rest. And, of course, from the moment when no more are formed, they all come together here and cover themselves in the end. So a sphere is created here in the surrounding area. This sphere is, of course, only created over time. It is, so to speak, the densest fire matter; it is also what can now be called Saturn in the narrower sense, because it is located at the position where today's Saturn is. And since everything repeats itself to a certain extent, the whole process was repeated during the formation of our Earth. Today's Saturn also came into being in such a way that it was actually held in a certain place, not exactly in the place where the old Saturn was held, because things shift for certain reasons, but the process of the formation of today's Saturn is the same. So, as it were, a small Saturn sphere is born out of the large, extensive, original Saturn through the interaction of all the world powers that belong to the hierarchies.

[ 6 ] Now let us consider the point at which all these spheres finally came to rest in the very first Saturn. From this point, the sages of ancient world wisdom said the following: the first structure of the physical human body was formed on this old Saturn. In its very first formation it is actually formed out of warmth, but in this warmth all the later organs are already laid down, so to speak, in the germ. At the point where the first movement that is set in motion comes to rest, the basis for that organ in the human body has been created, which later, when it stops moving, also sets the whole mechanism of the physical body at rest – that is the heart. The heart's disposition originates here from the first stimulus of movement, but it only comes into being in its first disposition when movement is brought to rest at this point as well. This makes the heart the organ through which the whole physical body is brought to rest in its functions when it stops beating.

[ 7 ] In the ancient language, each limb of the human body was given a very specific name.. The heart was called the lion in the body. Thus, the ancient wisdom said: In which direction in the zodiac do you have to point if you want to hit the region from which the first structure of the human heart was laid? They pointed upwards and called these thrones, seraphim, cherubim, who worked from there, the region of Leo. Man has projected his disposition out into the universe, and the region of his body that has been inhabited, inwardly called the lion, he has also outwardly called the region of the lion in the zodiac. So these things are connected.

[ 8 ] In this way, all the other human organs have been formed by this zodiac. The heart was formed from the region of Leo. What is near the heart, the conditions of the rib cage, that is, what must be there to protect the heart, was called the breastplate in the human body. Of course, it had to be formed in the region before the end of the heart. And another name for the breastplate was formed because the term was taken from an animal that naturally has such a shell, namely the crab. Actually, what is out there in the zodiac is called the “breastplate”, only in the case of Cancer there is a natural shell; therefore this region was called “Cancer”. It lies on one side of Leo.

[ 9 ] The other regions of the zodiac were named according to the same principle. In fact, it is man projected into space who has provided the names for the various regions of the zodiac. However, it is sometimes not at all easy to find this original intention in the often distorted names, as you can see from an example such as Cancer. The name has sometimes not been handed down in a straight line, but one often has to go back to the original meaning of the thing if one wants to gain clarity.

[ 10 ] But now let us turn to how Saturn decays again, how it dissolves once more. We shall now discuss how evolution continues after a pralaya has taken place. So after this Saturn formation has dissolved again, a new evolution begins, so to speak, a new formation. The first thing that happens is exactly the same as what happened before on Saturn. Then, after this entire Saturn existence has been repeated in this way, a second formation begins towards the center. We are advancing to that stage of evolution which we usually call the evolution of the ancient Sun. This happens in such a way that, in a similar way to the earlier sacrifice of the Thrones, it is now another level of the spiritual hierarchy that sacrifices itself, those entities that we call the Lords or the Spirits of Wisdom. The Thrones are mightier beings; they can pour out physical substantiality, warmth substantiality, out of themselves. Therefore, they can pour out of their own body, as we have described, the substance of Saturn. But the Lords or Spirits of Wisdom can only offer up an etheric body, which is thinner. The physical body is already there in its structure, and the Lords or Spirits of Wisdom now give it the etheric body. And that happens, so to speak, in a second periphery. I am now drawing a second periphery. This would be the original size of the old sun; it has contracted in relation to the large earlier periphery. By having contracted, it has become denser. This makes it possible that within the old sun there is now not only heat substance, but condensed heat substance, gaseous-airy substance. Now the entities from the circumference with the other, previously mentioned entities are also involved, and inside this solar circumference are only the forces and the powers or the spirits of form and movement. Everything else comes from the circumference.

[ 11 ] The following now occurs in a very similar way to the old Saturn. Certain currents are formed, which are generated by the spirits of the environment, only now the rulers are also involved. As a result, these currents are somewhat denser than those that were previously generated only by the thrones. The mass contracts in there, and now one haze sphere after another is compressed between these two currents. This sphere differs from the sphere of Saturn in that Saturn, in principle, consists of warmth substance in all its manifestations and is only moving about in space, so to speak, but this sphere here is now permeated by ether, by etheric corporeality. Even though it is dense like gas, it is permeated by etheric corporeality. This gives life to the whole sphere; it is an inwardly living being. While Saturn is an inwardly mobile being, full of activity, until it is brought to a standstill by Leo, Jupiter is inwardly alive. You can also call it Jupiter because what is in the sky as Jupiter is a repetition of what was once a piece of the sun that had split off. So, we have the old sun, the spheres are now circling around, they are living spheres, great living beings.

[ 12 ] Now you have to imagine another region of the zodiac instead of Leo, where these spheres are originally created and stimulated, namely the region that I mentioned at the beginning: the region of the eagle. In this region, the stimulation of this solar sphere, of this living being in cosmic space, originally takes place. Now, after this living sphere has gone once around, has completed the whole circumference, it comes again into the region of the eagle. But now something else occurs. While at this point the sphere began to live inwardly before, when it comes back to the same point, it is killed by the same influence that originally called it to life. One sphere after the other is killed. Then, when all have been killed and no new ones are created, the life of this old sun will also come to an end. The life here consists of new spheres being created and finally coming here, to the point where they are killed coming in from space. This death-thrust, which the life of the old sun receives from outer space, was felt to be the “scorpion” thrust. Therefore, this region has been called the region of Scorpius because it kills at the same time. Thus, at this point, we see the constellation that awakens dead matter to life, the eagle, but also the one that sends in the forces that kill, the constellation of Scorpius.

[ 13 ] We can therefore say that in the region of Leo are those forces in the zodiac that have brought the original life of the physical human disposition to rest; in the region of Scorpio are those forces that are capable of killing life as such. We will become acquainted with the connection with the differently constituted conditions of today, but this can only be done step by step. For a dense Maja has spread over the original conditions, a dense veil.

[ 14 ] Now let us move on. We no longer need to consider the next conditions in such detail, since the meaning of these descriptions and of the whole process has become clear to us. Only one thing needs to be recalled; that is the following. What kind of body is Saturn, basically? It is a warm body. If you look at Saturn, you are quite mistaken if you assume that it is a body that you can compare with other celestial bodies, such as Jupiter or Mars. What is there is in fact nothing but a warm space. And the fact that you see it as you do is because you can see it through a light space, you see it through a luminous space. Imagine what something looks like that you see through a lighted room. It looks bluish. You can study this with the ordinary candle flame; it looks blue in the middle, and there is a kind of halo around it. Whenever you look at the dark through the light, it looks blue. I say this consciously, knowing that I am running the risk of saying nonsense in the face of all the mechanical optics of modern times. But this nonsense is the right thing to say. Today's physics does not know why the whole of the celestial space appears blue. It appears blue because it is dark, black, and we see it through the illuminated space. Everything dark seen through something illuminated appears blue. That is why Saturn, when you look at it, appears to be a somewhat bluish world body. The things that are said here are completely consistent with the facts of science, only not with the fantastic theories that are being devised. Unfortunately, it would take us too far afield if I were to show you how the so-called formation of the rings on Saturn also arises from this point of view, because with every Saturn, one has to deal with a neutral warmth layer, a soul warmth layer and a physically perceptible warmth layer. Thus, when observing these different layers through the illuminated space, the illusion arises as if one had a gas ball surrounded by a kind of dust ring. One is dealing only with an optical phenomenon. Saturn is still a body consisting only of heat substance.

[ 15 ] These things can, of course, only be said in a context like today's; otherwise they would not be understood. Every Saturn must therefore be addressed as consisting essentially of warm substance, and everything about this Saturn can be explained in this way. Every Jupiter, which is nothing more than a stage of the sun, is a formation that essentially consists of gas and warmth. This is also the case with today's Jupiter, which is a repetition of the old Jupiter [the old sun]. Of course, the spatial and movement relationships change somewhat. Today's Jupiter is not in the same position as the former one, but essentially it is so. And now we come further and would have to explain Mars in the same way. We would have to explain it from a large ball cooled to the point of being watery, and we would also have to see a ball of water that had come loose from the general very thin water and was compressed at one point. In turn, it arises from the fact that all the individual water spheres that arise in the vicinity are ultimately stopped at a certain point. Just as the movement is inhibited on Saturn by Leo, as on Jupiter death is brought about by Scorpio, so on Mars these water spheres are stopped. However, in the details it is somewhat different for Mars than for Jupiter and Saturn. Today's Mars is therefore a repetition of the old moon. It stands in the same place as the old moon. It is the other piece of the old moon. One piece is our moon, which is slag; what remained alive, representing the other pole, remained in today's Mars in the repetition. By speaking of Mars as the third state of our planetary development, this state corresponds to that of the old moon. So Mars is essentially a body of water. And the astral body, that is, the first consciousness, was incorporated into the human being on this old moon - or old Mars, if you will. And this human being consisted of the substance of Mars or moon water in terms of his body. Just as the human body was assembled from the substances of the earth today, so the human body was assembled from fire, air and water back then. If you had looked at the densest substance, you could have called the human being the water man. He became one mainly because the astral body was implanted in him. It was not yet an ego-man, but an astral-gifted man. This had happened after a stimulus was given at one point; then it moved around in the surrounding area and came back to the same point from which it had started. That was the region in the zodiac that is designated as Aquarius or the Water Bearer. So you see that Aquarius, the sign of the zodiac, brought consciousness to people on the old moon or the old Mars after a single revolution.

[ 16 ] And now we are moving on to the earth. It is the fourth state of evolution. The three earlier states are repeated: a Saturn forms, a sun forms and leaves behind the Jupiter, which is the repeated sun; a moon forms, it leaves behind Mars; and finally the Earth arises with that which I have described, with the separation of the sun and with the piece that separates as lunar slag. You know that the first predisposition for the ego took place in the ancient Lemurian times, when the present Moon separated from the Earth. This could only have happened because the stimulus for it was given from the surrounding area, causing a revolution to take place; then, after it had revolved once, that which had been given the stimulus became ripe to receive the ego in the first predisposition. This happened in the ancient Lemurian period. And it was necessary to point to the place in the zodiac that we call Taurus today, because at the time when such names were created, people felt very vividly and very concretely. This designation essentially originated in the Egyptian and Chaldean secret teachings. That is where the origins of this term lie, and only in the real secret teachings is there still an awareness of the true meaning of the words. The very first inclination towards the 'I am' is expressed in language, in the tone. But all sound formation has a certain relationship, which is not to be discussed here, but which every occultist knows and which can be followed in more intimate lectures. There is a hidden connection. And now everything that is connected with these abilities and processes in man has summarized the old consciousness as the bull nature of man. And this is actually where the name of the particular constellation comes from, which in turn has the same meaning for the earth as Leo has for Saturn, as Scorpio has for Jupiter, as Aquarius has for Mars. When the Egyptian period approached, the third post-Atlantean culture had arrived. The first was the ancient Indian, the second the ancient Persian and the third the Egyptian culture. These cultures are the corresponding repetitions, as has been explained many times, of the whole developmental process of the earth. The Lemurian period is now the third earth time. The Egyptian Secret Doctrine therefore essentially repeats the processes of the Lemurian period in the spiritual reflection. What took place in this Lemurian period is known best of all by the priests of the Egyptian Secret Doctrine, for it is reflected in the peculiar culture of Egypt. Therefore, the culture of Egypt felt related to the constellation of Taurus, and in particular to the service of Taurus.

[ 17 ] So you see that it is not at all easy to point out the real processes that took place in the creation of our heavenly bodies and what is connected with them. For how do celestial bodies come into being? Our Saturn, our Jupiter, our Mars and so on actually came into being through the fact that shells originally formed; one after the other is killed, and when the process of bringing something into being is stopped, all the spherical formations that previously formed the shells are pushed together into a single structure of the surrounding area. In fact, every such heavenly body, such as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, has come into being because there was originally a kind of shell; this has condensed through one sphere being placed over another into the form that then appears visibly in the heavens. Here we have nothing of a mechanical process of the bleak Kant-Laplacean theory of the origin of the world, but here we have the living genesis of such formations, as we see them today as world bodies in Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, brought forth from the spiritual conditions of the hierarchies.