The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Before we turn to our actual questions about human karma, as announced, a number of preliminary considerations are necessary. This includes what was said yesterday: a sort of description of the concept of karma. It also includes what will be said today about karma and the animal kingdom. What might be called external evidence for the reality of karmic law, you will find throughout this series in those places where there is a particular need to point out this external evidence. On these occasions, you will also have the opportunity to discuss the rationale behind the concept of karma with outsiders who, as skeptics of the entire idea of karma, will question you about this or that. However, some preliminary considerations are necessary for all of this.

[ 2 ] What could be more natural than to ask: How do animal life and animal destiny relate to what we call the course of human karma, in which—as will become clear—we find the most important and far-reaching questions of destiny for human beings already determined?

[ 3 ] The relationship between humans on Earth and the animal world has varied over time and among different peoples. And it is certainly not uninteresting to observe how, among peoples who have preserved the best parts of humanity’s ancient sacred wisdom, a largely compassionate and loving treatment of animals has taken root. Within the world of Buddhism, for example, which has preserved important aspects of ancient worldviews as held by people in their primeval times, we find a profoundly compassionate treatment of animals—a treatment of animals and feelings toward the animal world that countless people in Europe still cannot comprehend. But even among other peoples—I need only mention the Arabs in regard to their treatment of their horses—especially when these peoples have preserved something of the ancient views, as they appear here and there as old heirlooms, you find a kind of “friendship” with animals, something like a humane treatment of animals. In contrast, it can certainly be said that in those regions where a certain worldview of the future is taking shape—in the Western regions—little understanding for such compassion toward the animal world has taken root. And it is characteristic that, in the course of the Middle Ages and then continuing into our own time, particularly in countries where the Christian worldview has gained ground, the view emerged that animals should not be regarded at all as beings with an actual inner life, but rather as a kind of automaton. And it has perhaps not been without reason that attention has been drawn—albeit not always with great understanding—to the fact that these views, which have been widely held in Western philosophy—namely, that animals are automatons and do not possess a true inner life—have seeped down into the masses, who show no compassion and often know no bounds in their cruel treatment of animals. Indeed, the matter has gone so far that one could have thoroughly misunderstood a great philosopher of modern times, Descartes, in his thoughts on the animal world.

[ 4 ] We must, of course, be clear that none of the truly significant thinkers in the development of Western culture ever held the view that animals are merely automatons. Descartes did not hold this view either, although you can read in many books on philosophy that Descartes held such a view. But that is not true; rather, anyone familiar with Descartes knows that while he does not attribute to animals a soul capable of developing from self-consciousness into a proof of God’s existence, he nevertheless attributes to the animal the fact that it is permeated, animated by the so-called life spirits, which admittedly do not constitute such a unified individuality as the human ego, but nevertheless function as a soul within the animal organism. And it is precisely characteristic that Descartes has been thoroughly misunderstood in this regard. For this shows us that in the past centuries of our Western development there was a tendency to attribute something merely automatic to animals, and this tendency was read into his work even where it could not have been read in had one proceeded conscientiously, namely in the case of Descartes. Western cultural development has the peculiarity that it had to emerge from the elements of materialism. And one can even say: The rise of Christianity took place in such a way that this significant impulse in human development was first transplanted into a materialistic Western mindset. Modern materialism is merely a consequence of the fact that even the most spiritual religious creed, Christianity, was initially able to find a materialistic interpretation in the West. It is, so to speak, the destiny of the Western peoples that they must work their way up from materialistic foundations and, precisely in overcoming materialistic views and tendencies, must unfold the powerful forces leading to the highest spiritualism. Because this destiny, this karma, has become the lot of the Western peoples, the tendency has also arisen among them to regard animals merely as automatons. Anyone who cannot clearly perceive the workings of spiritual life, anyone who can rely only on what surrounds us in the sensory external world, will easily arrive, based on impressions from this sensory external world, at a view of the animal world that places animals as low as possible. In contrast, those worldviews that have retained elements of the ancient spiritual worldviews of humanity’s primordial wisdom have preserved a kind of insight into what is spiritual in the animal world as well; and despite all misunderstandings, despite everything that has crept into their worldviews and corrupted their purity, they have nevertheless not forgotten that spiritual activities and spiritual laws are at work in the living out and shaping of the animal realm.

[ 5 ] So while, on the one hand, we must recognize that a lack of spiritual worldviews leads to a failure to understand the animal-soul aspect, we must not, on the other hand, delude ourselves into thinking that this, too, would merely be an outgrowth of a purely materialistic worldview if we were to apply the concept of karma—as it serves us in understanding human destiny and human karma—without further ado to the animal world. We must not do that. It was already pointed out yesterday that it is necessary to define the concept of karma very precisely. And we would be mistaken if we were to seek in the animal world what we have described as the return of the effect to the being from whom the cause originated; for we will only be able to understand the karmic law in a more comprehensive sense by going beyond the individual human life between birth and death, by tracing the human being through the succession of his reincarnations, and by finding that the repercussion of a cause we have set in motion in one life can only come in a later life, so that the law of karma extends from life to life, and the effects of causes need not occur—indeed, if we consider karma in the grand scheme, they certainly do not occur in the same life between birth and death.

[ 6 ] We already know from external spiritual scientific observations that we cannot speak of a reincarnation in animals of the kind that occurs in human beings. For that human individuality which persists when a human being passes through the gate of death—which lives a distinct life in the spiritual realm during the period between death and rebirth, only to re-enter existence through a new birth—we find nothing at all similar, or even identical, in the animal world. We cannot speak of animal death in the same way that we understand human death. For everything we describe as the destinies of human individuality after a human being has passed through the gate of death does not occur in the same way in the animal world; and if one were to believe that we could seek in an animal individual the reincarnated being of an animal that had previously existed on Earth, as we must do in the case of humans, then we would certainly be indulging in an error. Today, when people tend to view everything that presents itself to us in the world solely from the outside and do not delve into the inner reality, the actual great contrasts—the most important distinctions between human and animal—cannot even come into view. Externally—viewed purely materialistically—the phenomenon of death appears the same in humans and animals. One might easily believe, when observing the life of an animal, that one could compare individual aspects of this animal’s individual life with individual aspects of a human’s personal life between birth and death. But that would be a complete mistake. Therefore, the fundamental differences between the animal and the human realms shall first be indicated through individual examples.

[ 7 ] For only those who approach the facts—not only those that present themselves to their external sensory perception but also those that arise from their reasoning—with an open mind can fully grasp this difference between animals and humans. Here we find a phenomenon that is also highlighted by natural scientists, but one that contemporary natural scientists do not really know how to deal with, namely the phenomenon that humans must actually learn the simplest things first: throughout history, humans have had to learn how to use the simplest tools, and even today our children must still learn the simplest of things, and they must spend a certain amount of time learning them. It takes effort to teach a person simple manual skills, the making of instruments and tools, and so on. When we consider animals, however, we must say: How much better off animals are in this respect! — Let us consider how the beaver constructs its complicated, artful lodge. It does not need to learn it; it can do so because it is born with it as an innate instinct, just as we humans are born with the ability—the “art”—to lose our baby teeth around the age of seven. No one needs to learn that either. Thus, animals are born with such an ability as the beaver has to construct its dam. And if you look around the animal kingdom, you will find that animals possess very specific skills through which they can accomplish things that human skill, despite all the wonderful progress we have made, is still far from matching.

[ 8 ] Now the question may arise: How is it, in fact, that when a human being is born, they are less capable than, say, a chicken or a beaver, and that they must laboriously acquire what these creatures are already born with? That is a profound question. And above all, one must learn to sense that it is a big question. For in what a human being must gain for his worldview, it matters far less that one points out important facts than that one knows where to ask important questions. Facts may be correct, but they are not always valuable for our worldview. Now, although we will address the causes of these phenomena from a spiritual-scientific perspective today, it would take us too far afield to show in every detail why this is so. But for now, a few words can be said to point this out.

[ 9 ] If we trace human development back through the humanities to the distant past, we will find that the forces and elements which, so to speak, are available to the beaver or another animal to bring such skills into the world were also available to human beings. After all, human beings did not merely inherit clumsiness in their constitution from the distant past and have to leave primitive dexterity to the animals. They also received this capacity—indeed, in a far greater degree than the animals. For even though animals are born with certain great skills, these are one-sided in life. Humans, in essence, can do nothing at all when they enter life; they must first learn everything that pertains to the external world. That is a radical way of putting it, but we will understand one another. But when humans do learn, it soon becomes apparent that they are more versatile, that their development can be richer in terms of the expression of certain skills and the like than is the case with animals. So humans were originally endowed with rich potential—and yet they do not possess it today. Now the peculiar phenomenon comes to light that originally humans and animals were endowed in the same way. And if we were to go back to the ancient Saturn evolution, we would find that a distinction between human and animal development had not yet taken place at all. There, both were endowed in exactly the same way. — What has happened in the meantime that the animal carries all manner of skills into existence, while the human being is such a clumsy companion in worldly existence? How has humanity actually behaved in the meantime that it now suddenly lacks all that it had originally been endowed with? Has it senselessly squandered these gifts in the course of evolution, while the animals, as thrifty stewards, have preserved them? This question can be raised on the basis of the actual facts.

[ 10 ] Human beings have not wasted these innate capacities, which animals today express through physical dexterity; they have also made use of them, but for purposes different from those of animals. Animals express these capacities through physical dexterity; beavers and wasps build their nests. Humans have taken the same forces that animals express in this way and directed them inward, applying them to themselves. And through this, they have brought about what we call their higher human organization. The fact that humans today walk upright, that they have a more perfect brain—indeed, a more perfect internal organization—also required certain forces; and these are the same forces with which the beaver builds its lodge. The beaver builds its nest. Human beings have directed these forces inward, toward their brain, their nervous system, and so on. Consequently, human beings initially had nothing left to work outward in the same way. So the fact that we walk among the animals today with a more perfect structure stems from the fact that, in the course of evolution, we once applied everything the beaver processes outwardly to our inner structure. We have our beaver lodge within us and can therefore no longer unfold these forces outward in the same way. Here we see, if we hold fast to a unified worldview, where the various capacities present in beings lead and how they confront us today. Because human beings have used these forces in their own way, a very special arrangement became necessary for them in their earthly development—one that we are already partly familiar with.

[ 11 ] Why did the forces just mentioned—which we observe in the various species and genera of the animal kingdom as external activities—have to be directed toward the inner workings of the human organism? Because it was only by acquiring this inner organization that human beings could become the bearers of what is today the “I,” which passes from incarnation to incarnation. No other organization could have become such a bearer of the “I”; for it depends entirely on the outer shell whether an “I”-individuality can act in earthly existence or not. It could not do so if the outer organization were not suited to the ego-individuality. Everything therefore came down to making the outer organization suitable for this ego-individuality. To this end, a special structure had to be created, and we already know its essential nature.

[ 12 ] We know that the development of the Earth was preceded by the lunar phase, which in turn was preceded by the solar phase, and that by a Saturn phase. When the ancient lunar phase came to an end, humanity had reached a stage in its external existence that can be described as “animal humanity.” But at that time, this outer human organization was not yet sufficiently developed to become the bearer of an ego-individuality. It was the task of human Earth evolution to incorporate the ego into this organization. However, this could only happen because the processes of our Earth evolution were arranged in a very peculiar way. — When the ancient lunar evolution had come to an end, everything dissolved, so to speak, into chaos. From this, after a corresponding period of cosmic twilight, the new cosmos of our Earth’s evolution emerged once more. In this cosmos of Earth’s development, everything that is today connected to us and the Earth as our solar system was contained at that time. It was only from this context, from this cosmic unity, that all the other celestial bodies then split off from our actual Earth. We need not go into the manner in which the other planets—Jupiter, Mars, and so on—split off. We need only point out that at a certain point in Earth’s development, our Earth and our Sun separated. Once the Sun had already separated and was sending its influences onto Earth from the outside, our Earth was still connected to what is now the Moon, so that the substances and spiritual forces that are now bound to the Moon were at that time still connected to our Earth.

[ 13 ] The question has often been raised as to what would have happened if the Sun had not separated from the Earth and had not transitioned to the state in which it now acts upon the Earth from the outside. Since the Earth was initially still connected to the Sun, under those very different conditions, the entire cosmic system and also the ancestors of the human organism were united with one another. It is, of course, absurd to look at today’s conditions and then say: What kind of nonsense is this from the Theosophists; surely all the organized beings would have had to burn up! — These beings were precisely such that they could exist within that entirely different cosmic unity under the conditions of that time. — If the Sun had remained connected to the Earth, then entirely different, much more intense forces would have remained connected to the Earth, and the result would have been that the entire development of the Earth would have progressed with such intensity and speed that it would not have been possible for human organization to unfold as it had to. Therefore, it was necessary for the Earth to be provided with a slower pace and denser forces. This could only happen by the stormy, vehement forces withdrawing from the Earth. Thus, the forces of the Sun acted more weakly, above all because they now acted upon the Earth from the outside through distance. But this had now brought about something else. The Earth was now in a state where human beings would again have been unable to progress in the proper way. Conditions were now too dense, too woody and withering for all life. Humanity would again have been unable to achieve its development had things remained that way. This was remedied by a special arrangement, namely that some time after the Sun’s departure, the present-day Moon left the Earth and carried with it the slowing forces that would have led life to a slow death. Thus the Earth remained between the Sun and the Moon, choosing just the right pace for the human organism to truly accommodate an “I” as the bearer of individuality that passes from incarnation to incarnation. The human organism, as it is today, could not have been brought forth from the cosmos under any other circumstances than through this process of first the separation from the Sun and then from the Moon.

[ 14 ] Someone might say: If I had been God, I would have done things differently; I would have created a mixture right from the start that would have allowed the human organism to develop in the way it had to. Why, then, was it necessary for the sun to emerge first, and for the moon to emerge again afterward?

[ 15 ] Anyone who thinks this way is thinking far too abstractly. They do not consider that if an inner diversity is to be brought about in the world order—as is the case with the human organism—a specific arrangement is necessary for each individual part, and that what the human mind conceives in a speculative manner cannot be translated into reality. In the abstract, one can conceive of anything; but in genuine spiritual science, one must learn to think concretely, so that one says to oneself: The human organism is, after all, not a simple one. It consists of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. These three members first had to be brought into a certain balance so that the individual parts stand in the right relationship to one another. This could only take place through this threefold process: first, the formation of the unified cosmos, the entire cosmic unity of Earth, Sun, and Moon together. Then, that which could have a slowing effect on the human etheric body had to be accomplished separately, because otherwise it would have consumed all development too impetuously—and this happened by the Sun being led out. And then again, because the astral body would otherwise have caused the human organism to wither away, the Moon had to be led out. Since the human organism has three members, these three processes also had to take place.

[ 16 ] Thus we see that human beings owe their existence and their present characteristics to a complex structure within the cosmos. We also know, however, that the development of all the kingdoms of nature cannot by any means keep pace with general evolution. We know from the general observations of recent years that on each of the Earth’s planetary incarnations, certain beings have always lagged behind the general development; as development moved forward, these beings lived in states that did not fully correspond to that development. We also know, however, that all development could only truly be set in motion through such lagging behind. For we know that certain beings remained behind during the ancient lunar evolution as the “Luciferic entities,” that much evil was caused through them, but that we also owe to them what first makes human existence possible for us, namely the possibility of freedom, of the free unfolding of our inner being. Yes, we can say: In a certain sense, the lagging behind of the Luciferic beings was a sacrifice. They remained behind so that during their earthly existence they could perform very special tasks, namely to endow human beings with the passions that belong to their human dignity and self-determination. — We must simply accustom ourselves to using terms quite different from those usually employed, for based on ordinary terms one might perhaps say that the Luciferic spirits should have been made to “stay after school,” and one would not forgive them their negligence. But this was not a matter of negligence on the part of the Luciferic beings. Their remaining behind was, in a certain sense, a sacrifice, so that through what they acquired by this sacrifice, they might be able to work upon our earthly humanity.

[ 17 ] As you know from yesterday’s remarks, it is not only beings but also substances that have remained behind, preserving laws that were appropriate in earlier planetary states and that they then carried over into later development. Thus, phases of development from ancient times intersect with phases of development from more recent times; they intermingle. It is this intermingling that actually makes the diversity of life possible in the first place. — This is how the most diverse stages in the development of beings present themselves to us. It would not have been possible for an animal kingdom to develop at all alongside the human kingdom if certain beings had not remained behind after the Saturn period—so that while humans had already evolved to a higher stage on the Sun—they could form a second kingdom and emerge as the first precursors of our present-day animal kingdom. This remaining behind is absolutely necessary as the foundation for later formations.

[ 18 ] If the question is now raised: Why must entities and substances be left behind? — I would like to clarify this with a comparison. Human development was meant to progress step by step. This was only possible because human beings became increasingly refined. If they had always acted with the same forces they used during the Saturn phase, they would not have made any progress. They would have remained stagnant. That is why they had to refine their forces. — Now, to illustrate this, let us take a glass of water in which some substance is dissolved. Everything in this glass, from top to bottom, will have the same color, the same density, and so on; everything will be the same. Now suppose the coarser substances settle to the bottom; then the purer water and the finer substances remain at the top. The water could therefore only refine itself by excreting the coarser matter. — Something like this was also necessary after the Saturn evolution had run its course; such a sediment had to form; all of humanity had to excrete something and retain the finer parts. What had been excreted then became the animals. Through this excretion, the others were able to refine themselves and advance one step higher. And at each such stage, entities had to be excreted so that humanity could ascend higher and higher.

[ 19 ] We therefore have a humanity that has only become possible because human beings have freed themselves from those beings that live around us in the lower kingdoms. We once had these beings, with all their powers, within the current of evolution; they were bound to it just as the denser components are bound to water. We have allowed them to sink to the bottom and have risen above them. This is what has made our evolution possible. We thus look down upon the three natural kingdoms living alongside us and say: In all of this we see something that had to become our foundation so that we could evolve. These beings have sunk down so that we could rise up. This is how we view the lower natural kingdoms in the proper way.

[ 20 ] If we now consider the evolution of the Earth, this process will become even clearer to us in its details. We must realize that all facts within the Earth’s evolution are connected by certain relationships and interdependencies. We have seen that the separation of the Sun and the Moon from the Earth actually took place so that the human organism could reach the necessary level of development during the Earth’s evolution to become an individual; this was part of the process of purifying the human organism, so to speak. But because these separations in the universe occurred for the sake of humanity, such a profound change in our entire solar system has also exerted an influence on all three other kingdoms of nature, above all on the animal kingdom, which is closest to us. And if we wish to understand this influence exerted on the animal kingdom by the processes of the separation of the Sun and Moon, then we gain the following insight from spiritual research.

[ 21 ] Humanity had reached a certain stage of development when the Sun separated from the Earth. Had humanity been forced to remain at that stage—the one it had reached during the time when the Moon was still connected to the Earth—it would not have been able to attain its present organization; instead, it would have faced a state of desolation and withering. The lunar forces first had to withdraw. However, the fact that this human constitution became possible is due solely to the circumstance that, during the time when the Moon was still within the Earth, humanity had preserved a constitution that could still be softened; for it would have been possible that their constitution had already become so hardened that the moon’s departure would have served no purpose. Indeed, only the ancestors of humankind were at this stage where the constitution could still be softened. — The moon therefore had to depart at a specific time. What, then, happened up to the point when the moon departed?

[ 22 ] The human constitution became coarser and coarser. It is true that humans did not look like pieces of wood. That would be too crude an image. Despite its coarseness, the constitution of that time was still more refined than the constitution of today. But for that time, the human constitution was so coarse that the spiritual part of the human being—which even then, in a certain way, lived alternately with and without the physical body—had finally reached a point, in the period between the Sun’s and Moon’s departure, where, when it wished to seek out its physical body again, it found that body so dense as a result of the processes on Earth that it no longer had any possibility of entering it and using it as a vessel. Consequently, the spiritual-soul aspect of many human ancestors took its leave of the Earth altogether and sought a new home for a certain time on other planets belonging to our solar system. Only a very small portion of the physical bodies remained usable and survived this period. I have also described this on several occasions: that the vast majority of human souls moved out into space, but that the ongoing current of development was sustained by a small portion—namely, those human souls who were the most robust and were able to endure and overcome it all. These robust souls carried development through the critical period.

[ 23 ] Throughout this entire process, what was at work was not yet what we call human selfhood or human individuality. The character of the group soul was still more prominent. When the souls withdrew, they merged into the group soul’s existence.

[ 24 ] Then came the departure from the Moon, and with it came the opportunity once again for the human organism to be refined so that it could once more receive the souls that had previously fled. And these souls gradually returned—right up into the Atlantean era—and took up residence in human bodies. But certain organizations had remained behind, having developed during the critical period. They had reproduced during this time, yet they could not become vessels for human soul-life. They were, after all, coarse organizations. Thus, alongside those organizations that were later able to refine themselves, others from the critical Earth period had persisted. These now became the precursors of a coarser organization, and thus it came to pass that alongside those organizations which could become bearers of human individualities, there also propagated organizations that could not become bearers of human individualities and which were the descendants of the organisms abandoned by human souls from that time when the Sun had already departed and the Moon was still connected to the Earth.

[ 25 ] Thus, alongside human beings, we see a realm of organisms literally taking shape that, by retaining their lunar character, had become incapable of serving as vessels for human individualities. These organisms are essentially those that became the organisms of our present-day animals. It might seem strange that these coarser organisms of today’s animals now possess certain abilities that can even have a wise effect in the world, as for example in the beaver lodge. But this can become clear to us if we do not imagine things to be too simple, but realize that it was precisely the organisms of these beings—which had not been inhabited by human souls—that had developed the external structures of the animal burrow, a certain nervous system, and the like, which made it possible to harmonize completely with the laws of earthly existence. For those beings who had not remained capable of receiving human souls had remained connected to the Earth throughout the entire period. The other organizations, which later refined themselves so that they could receive human individualities, were indeed also connected to the Earth; but because they had to undergo changes later, when the Moon had separated, they lost precisely what they had acquired up to that point through their refinement and the necessity of undergoing these changes.

[ 26 ] So we see: When the Moon had separated from the Earth, there were certain organizations on Earth that had simply continued to exist in a straight line, just as they had been bound to develop while the Moon was still connected to the Earth. These organizations had remained crude, had preserved the laws they had, and had become so rigid within themselves that, when the Moon had departed, no change was possible with them. They simply propagated themselves in a rigid manner. The other organizations, which became the bearers of human individualities, had to change; they could not propagate themselves rigidly. They changed in such a way that entities could now influence them—entities that in the meantime had not been connected to the Earth at all, that were entirely elsewhere and first had to reunite with the Earth. —Therein lies the difference between those entities that had retained the old, rigid lunar character and those that had changed. What, then, did this change consist of?

[ 27 ] When the souls that had departed from Earth returned and took possession of their bodies once more, they began to restructure the nervous system, the brain, and so on. They used the powers they possessed, as it were, for this internal restructuring. Nothing could be changed in the other beings who had become rigid. These latter organizations were now taken over by other beings who had not yet engaged in intervening in the organization, who had remained at their earlier stages, who do not progress far enough to influence the inner organizations at all, but who act from the outside like the animal species souls. Thus, those organizations that were suited to it received the human soul after the departure from the Moon; and these beings then worked upon the organization in such a way that it led to the perfect human form. The organizations that had remained rigid during the Lunar period could no longer be changed. Those souls are now taking possession of them—souls that were not yet ready to enter an individuality, that had remained at the Lunar stage, that had developed everything that could be achieved at the Lunar stage, and that are therefore now taking possession of these organizations as species souls.

[ 28 ] This is how the difference between humans and animals is explained to us through cosmic processes. It is precisely through the cosmic processes involved in the Earth’s development that two types of organization arise. Had we had to stop at the level of the beings immediately below human beings, we would now have to hover around the Earth with our I, because the organizations have become too rigid. We could not descend, and although we have become more perfect beings, we would have to remain where the organizations of the animal group souls are. But since our organizations were able to refine themselves, we were able to move into them and use them as our dwelling places; that is, we were able to descend into physical bodies all the way down to the Earth. The species souls had no need for this. They work from the spiritual world into the beings.

[ 29 ] We thus see in the animal kingdom that surrounds us something that we ourselves would be today if we did not owe our organization to the structure described. Let us now ask ourselves: How did the animals below us, with their rigid organizations, come to be on Earth? — They came down through us! They are the descendants of those bodies that we no longer wished to inhabit after leaving the Moon, because they had become too coarse. We left these bodies behind in order to find others later. We would not have been able to find others later if we had not left those first ones behind at that time. For after the Sun emerged on Earth, we had to seek our way forward. — So we have precisely the process where we, so to speak, left certain beings behind among ourselves so that we ourselves could find the opportunity to ascend higher. To ascend higher, we had to go to other planets and let the bodies down there degenerate. We owe what we are, in a certain sense, to what was left behind down there. Yes, we can describe this “owing” in much greater detail. We can ask ourselves: How was it even possible for us to leave Earth during that critical period? It’s not as if a being can simply go wherever it pleases.

[ 30 ] Then, during the Earth’s evolution, something occurred for the first time that we again owe to the Luciferic spirits. The Luciferic beings were our guides who took us away during that critical period of Earth’s evolution. They told us, as it were: A critical time is now approaching down there; you must leave the Earth! — It was the Luciferic spirits under whose guidance we left the Earth, the very same Luciferic spirits who introduced into our astral body at that time the Luciferic principle—the inclination toward everything we call the possibility of evil within us—but at the same time, of course, also the possibility of freedom. Had they not taken us away from the Earth back then, we would have remained forever chained to the form we had created at that time, and we could now at most hover around that form from above, but would never be able to inhabit it. So they took us away and united their own being with our being.

[ 31 ] When we consider this, it becomes clear to us that, as we departed, we took on the Luciferic influences. The groups that did not share this fate—those who were led at that time to very specific regions of the world that remained connected to the Earth—remained below, free from the Luciferic influence. They had to share the earthly destinies with us—but could not share our heavenly destiny with us. And when we returned to Earth, we had the Luciferic influence within us, but those other beings did not, and this made it possible for us to lead a life in a physical body and yet a life independent of the physical body, so that we could also become more and more independent of the physical body. But these other beings, who did not have the Luciferic influence within them, represented what we had made of them, what our astral bodies were in the interval between the Sun and Moon, that is, that from which we freed ourselves. We look at the animals and say: All that the animals represent in cruelty, in gluttony, in all animal vices, alongside the dexterity they possess—we would have that within us if we had not been able to cast it out of ourselves! — We owe the liberation of our astral body to the fact that all the coarser astral qualities have remained behind in the animal kingdom of the Earth. And we can say: How fortunate for us that we no longer have this within us: the cruelty of the lion, the cunning of the fox—that it has been drawn out of us and leads an independent existence outside of us!

[ 32 ] Thus, animals share with us what constitutes our astral body, and through this they have the capacity to feel pain. But precisely because of what has just been said, they have not been able to gain the ability to rise higher and higher through pain and through the overcoming of pain. For they have no individuality. Because of this, animals are far, far worse off than we are. We must endure pain; but every pain is a means of perfection for us; by overcoming it, we rise higher through pain. We have left the animals behind as beings that, while already capable of feeling pain, did not yet possess what could elevate them above pain, thereby enabling them to overcome it. That is the fate of the animals. They show us our own organization at the stage where we were capable of feeling pain but could not yet transform that pain into something beneficial for humanity through overcoming it. Thus, in the course of Earth’s evolution, we have given the animals our worse part, and they stand around us as a symbol of the fact that we have attained our perfection. We would not have been able to rid ourselves of the dregs had we not left the animals behind.

[ 33 ] We must not learn to view such facts as theories, but rather with a cosmic sense of the world. We must look upon the animals with the feeling: There you are, animals. When you suffer, you suffer something that benefits us humans. We humans have the ability to overcome suffering; you must endure it. But we have left you with the suffering—and deprived ourselves of the ability to overcome it!

[ 34 ] When this cosmic feeling is developed from theory, it becomes a comprehensive compassion for the animal world. Wherever, therefore, the cosmic feeling sprang from humanity’s primordial wisdom—where people had still preserved a memory of the ancient knowledge that told each one, through dim clairvoyance, how things once were—there compassion for the animal world had also been preserved, and there compassion for animals emerges to a high degree. — This compassion will return when people become accustomed to absorbing spiritual wisdom, when people once again come to understand how human karma is connected to world karma. In the times that were, so to speak, times of darkness, in which materialistic thinking took hold, people could not have had any real understanding of these connections. People looked only at what exists side by side in space, without considering that what exists side by side in space has a single origin and has only become separated in the course of evolution. And naturally, they did not feel what connects humans to animals. And in all regions of the earth where the mission was to obscure the awareness of the connection between humans and the animal world—where this awareness was replaced by one limited to the external physical space—there, in a peculiar way, humans repaid the animals for what they owed them—by simply eating them.

[ 35 ] At the same time, however, these things show us how worldviews are connected to the human world of sensations and emotions. Sensations and emotions are, in the final analysis, consequences of worldviews, and just as worldviews and insights change, so too will sensations and emotions change within the context of humanity. Humanity could not help but evolve to a higher level; it had to push other beings into the abyss in order to rise higher itself. It could not give animals an individuality that would balance, through karma, what the animals must suffer; it could only pass on the pain to them, without being able to give them the karmic law of balance. But what he could not give them before, humanity will one day give them when it has attained the freedom and selflessness of its individuality. Then it will—in a conscious manner—also grasp the karmic law in this realm and will say: I owe what I am to the animals. What I can no longer give to the individual animal beings who have descended from an individual existence into a shadow existence—what I, so to speak, once owed to the animals—I must now make amends for through the treatment I bestow upon them! — Therefore, as development progresses through an awareness of karmic relationships, a better relationship between humanity and the animal kingdom will emerge than currently exists, especially in the West. A new way of treating animals will emerge through which humanity will lift up the animals it has cast down.

[ 36 ] Thus, we do indeed see a certain relationship between karma and the animal kingdom. What an animal experiences as fate cannot be compared to human karma, unless we wish to confuse the two. But if we consider the entire development of the Earth and what had to happen for the sake of humanity and its evolution, then we will see that we can indeed speak of a relationship between human karma and the animal world.