The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] If we look back once more at what has emerged as our account of the first moments of the Earth’s creation, we may notice a number of things that remain unexplained. After all that we have now considered together, it becomes clear that we must seek much more substance in the terms used in Genesis than is apparent from the standard Bible translations.

[ 2 ] Yesterday we pointed out that the word yom, “day,” is not the abstract concept—the abstract concept of time—that we today call a day, but that this word refers to something essential, namely to those beings whom we, within the order of the hierarchies, designate as spirits of personality, as spirits of the age, or *Archai*. The statement that has been made here on several occasions—that behind this weaving and life of elemental existence, as described to us in Genesis, we must see the soul-spiritual everywhere—we may thus take this statement even more deeply than we perhaps have done so far. And we may also perceive, behind many other things that come before our soul in Genesis, not empty abstractions, but essential beings. It will, of course, be easy to perceive the essential when it says: the Spirit of the Elohim, Ruach Elohim. But if we wish to grasp the meaning of the ancient traditions, we must not seek the essential only in such expressions—where perhaps even a modern mind might still be inclined to perceive the essential—but we must trace this essential everywhere. And so it will not seem unjustified when the question arises: “How are we to regard what lies hidden, for example, behind the expression ‘And the inner life was tohu wabohu,’ as I have characterized it for you, ‘and darkness was over the elemental, material existence’?” Is there perhaps something essential to be seen behind what is here referred to as ‘darkness’? — For we cannot understand Genesis at all if we do not answer such questions. Just as we must see in everything that otherwise appears in elemental existence as the positive, so to speak—such as light, air, water, earth, and warmth—merely the manifestations of a spiritual reality, so too might we see in the more negative expressions merely the outer manifestation of something deeper and more essential.

[ 3 ] To get to the bottom of this matter, it will again be necessary to look back to the earliest traceable stage of our planet’s evolution. We have often said that we must regard the ancient Saturn existence as a purely thermal existence, and that in the transition to the ancient Sun existence, on the one hand there is a condensation into an air- or gas-like state, and on the other hand a kind of rarefaction toward the more ethereal, toward the light-ether. And we have seen how a kind of repetition of this light-etheric state takes place where the words resound: “And the Elohim said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light.”

[ 4 ] We may now ask: Was the darkness there of its own accord, or is there also a spiritual entity hidden behind it? — If you read the relevant chapter in my Occult Science, you will notice something that is extraordinarily important for understanding all becoming, namely, that at every stage of development certain entities are left behind. Only a certain number of entities reach their goal. I have often described this with the simple, striking comparison that I said: Not only do students in our schools fail to advance, much to their parents’ concern, but in cosmic evolution, too, certain beings actually remain at an earlier stage, failing, so to speak, to reach their intended goal. — Thus we may say that certain beings did not reach their true developmental goal during the old Saturn evolution, that they were left behind, that when the old Sun existence was already present, they in a certain sense still stood at the Saturn stage.

[ 5 ] How, then, did such beings—who were, in fact, still Saturn beings—make themselves known during the old Sun era? By the fact that they, above all, retained the essential nature of the old Sun existence—that they had not attained the nature of light. But because they were present, this old Sun existence, which I have described to you as a self-weaving of light, warmth, and air, had woven darkness into itself alongside the light, as it were, interwoven with it. And this darkness was just as much the expression of the beings who had remained behind on the Saturn stage as the weaving light was the expression of those beings who had reached the old Sun stage in the regular way. Thus, viewed from the outside, Saturn beings who had remained behind and Sun beings who had progressed correctly were interwoven within the outer Sun existence. Viewed from within, then, these beings wove together, and outwardly they manifested as light and darkness, as the interplay of light and darkness. If we look at the light, we may say: this is the manifestation of the beings who have advanced to the solar stage. If we look at the darkness, it presents itself to us as the outer manifestation of the beings who remained on the old Saturn stage.

[ 6 ] Once we recognize this, we can also expect that these relationships between advanced and less advanced beings will reappear during the repetition of the old Saturn and Sun stages of Earth’s evolution. And because the beings who remained behind in the old Saturn state represent, so to speak, an earlier stage of development, they will also be able to appear earlier than the light in the repetition. Therefore, we see quite correctly that right in the first verses of Genesis we are told how darkness reigns over the elemental masses. This is the repetition of Saturn existence, but of a backward-staying Saturn existence. The other, the solar existence, must wait. That appears later; it appears at the moment indicated there by the words “Let there be light.” Thus, we see in Genesis, in a completely accurate way, that even with these repetitions, the truth has been captured.

[ 7 ] If we are to understand existence at all, we must realize that what appears at an earlier stage does not simply appear once and then disappear. The truth is rather that, while something new is always emerging, the old remains present alongside the new and continues to work within it. And so, even today in our earthly existence, we have these two stages of development, which we can describe as the relationship between light and darkness. Light and darkness are truly something that permeates our existence. Here, however, we come to a chapter that one might say is quite fateful for the present.

[ 8 ] I don’t know if any of you are aware that for about thirty years now I have been striving time and again to demonstrate the profound significance and intrinsic value of Goethe’s theory of colors. However, anyone who advocates for Goethe’s theory of colors today must be fully aware that they cannot expect to be heard by their contemporaries. For those who, through their knowledge of physics, would be capable of understanding what is actually meant when one speaks of Goethe’s theory of colors are today completely unprepared to grasp the very essence of Goethe’s theory of colors. The physical fantasies with their etheric vibrations and so on are today absolutely incapable of grasping in any way the essential core of what constitutes Goethe’s theory of colors. We simply have to wait a few more decades. Those who speak about these things know this. And the others, on the other hand—forgive me for saying this—who might already be mature enough, whether through occultism or some other anthroposophical path, to grasp the essence of Goethe’s theory of colors, know far too little about physics to speak properly about these matters. So today there is no real foundation for this matter. Underlying what Goethe’s theory of colors encompasses is the mystery of the interplay of light and darkness as two polar, essential entities in the world. And what is today fantastically referred to as the concept of matter—which, as it is generally conceived, does not exist at all but is an illusion—is something that hides as a spiritual-soul being wherever the polar opposite of light, darkness, appears. In truth, what is designated as the physical concept of matter is a fantasy. In the regions of space where, as physics says, one must seek what haunts as matter, there is in truth nothing else present but a certain degree of darkness. And this dark expanse is filled with spiritual-soul entities akin to what is already stated in Genesis, where the total mass of this spiritual-soul substance is characterized by darkness and where it is said that this darkness hovers over elemental existence. All these things lie far, far deeper than modern science can even imagine. So when darkness is spoken of in Genesis, we are dealing with the manifestation of the backward Saturnic beings, and when light is spoken of, we are dealing with the manifestation of the advanced beings. They interact and interweave with one another.

[ 9 ] Yesterday we pointed out that the main lines—the broader features of development, so to speak—are determined by those beings whom we have placed on the level of the Exusiai, the level of the Spirits of Form, so that they thus also determine the broad outlines of the activities of light. Furthermore, we have seen that they appoint, as it were, the Spirits of Personality as their servants, and that behind the term jom, “day,” there is to be seen something like a being appointed by the Elohim of the rank of the Archai, below the Elohim. We may therefore also surmise that, just as these servants of the Elohim, these spirits of personality designated as jom, “day,” are active on the one hand—as it were, on the positive side—so too do the spiritual beings who have remained behind and who work through darkness play a certain role in opposition to them. Indeed, we may say: Darkness is something the Elohim encounter; they conceive the light. When they conceive the two complexes out of what remains as the remnant of the old existence, it follows that darkness was interwoven within them as an expression of the backward-looking beings. They bestow the light. — But just as the Elohim, as it were, place those beings designated by yom, day, out of the light, so too does the same level of beings emerge out of the darkness, only remaining at an earlier stage of existence. We can therefore say: Opposing the Elohim on the one hand is everything that manifests as darkness. — And we must now ask: What stands opposite the immediate servants in the light, the Archai, those designated by yom, day—what stands opposite them as the corresponding backward state?

[ 10 ] To avoid any misunderstanding, it is helpful to first answer another question: whether we must always see something evil or wrong in the context of the universe when considering these less-developed beings. The abstract person, who clings only to concepts, can easily come to feel, so to speak, annoyed at the backward beings, or he may fall into the opposite mood, feeling pity for the poor backward beings. All of these would be feelings and concepts that we should not harbor toward these great, essential things of the universe. We would be completely mistaken. Rather, we must remind ourselves that everything that happens in this way—whether the beings reach their goal or, so to speak, hold back at an earlier stage of development—happens out of cosmic wisdom, and that it makes sense for beings to remain behind at a certain stage; that it is just as significant for the whole when beings remain behind as when beings reach their goal; in other words, that certain functions could not be performed at all by the advanced beings, that such beings are necessary for this who remain at an earlier stage. In their remaining behind, they are precisely in the right place. One might ask: What would actually become of the human world if all those who are meant to be teachers for the little ones were to become university professors? — Those who do not become university professors are much better suited to their place than the more advanced ones would be. University professors would probably be quite unsuitable educators for seven-, eight-, nine-, and ten-year-old children! It is the same in the cosmic context. Those who reach their goal would be quite unsuitable for certain tasks in the cosmos. For such tasks, the others—who, we might as well say, have remained behind out of self-sacrifice—must fill their place. And just as the advanced spirits of personality, the jom, are now placed in their proper positions by the Elohim, so too, in order to bring about the entire order, the entire lawfulness of our earthly existence, the remaining Archai are utilized—those spirits of personality who do not reveal themselves through the light, but through the darkness. They are placed in the right position so that they may contribute in a corresponding manner to the lawful development of our existence.

[ 11 ] We can see just how important this is by observing our ordinary daily lives. The light spoken of in Genesis is not the light that can be seen with our physical eyes. That is a later manifestation of the light spoken of in Genesis. Likewise, what we call physical darkness—what surrounds us at night when the sun is not shining—is a later physical expression of what is referred to as darkness in Genesis. If we now ask ourselves: Does this physical daylight, as we see it today, have a certain significance for human beings?—then none of you will doubt the significance of this light for human beings as well as for other beings. Take plants, for example! If you remove them from the light, they wither. For everything that lives on Earth, light is an element of life. Light is therefore necessary, even for human beings, in relation to their external physical existence.

[ 12 ] But it is not just the light; something else is also necessary. And to understand this other element, we must consider the alternating states of waking and sleeping in relation to our physical and etheric bodies. What does it actually mean, in a deeper sense, to be awake? What do we, as human beings, do when we are awake? Essentially, all our soul activity—everything we unfold in our world of imagination, in our world of sensations and feelings, in the ebbing and flowing of our passions—in short, everything that takes place in this surging and the forces of our astral body and our ego—is a continuous consumption of our physical body during the course of the day. This is an ancient occult truth, a truth to which even conventional physiology has come today, provided it interprets its findings reasonably correctly. What the soul unfolds as our inner life continuously consumes, in the waking state, the forces of the outer physical body, which received its initial developmental potential during the ancient Saturn state.

[ 13 ] The life of this physical body is quite different during sleep, when the astral body is outside, in tune with the ebb and flow of inner life. Just as waking life is a constant depletion—one might even say destruction—of the physical body’s forces, so sleep life is a constant restoration, a regeneration, a rebuilding. Thus we must distinguish between destructive processes and constructive processes in our physical body and our etheric body: destructive processes that take place during waking life, and constructive processes that take place during sleep. But everything that happens anywhere in space does not stand alone in the world, but is connected with the whole of existence. And when we consider the processes of destruction that take place in our physical body from waking until falling asleep, we must not regard them as if they were taking place in isolation within the confines of our skin. They are intimately connected with cosmic processes. Only that which flows into us from the outside continues, so that during waking life we are, so to speak, connected with the dissolving forces of the universe, and during night sleep with the building forces of the universe.

[ 14 ] This breakdown of our physical body, which we experience today during the waking hours, could not have existed during the ancient Saturn era. If it had already existed during the ancient Saturn era, then the first rudiments of our physical body could never have formed in the first place. For, of course, one cannot build anything if one begins to destroy. Saturn’s activity had to be a constructive one for our body. This was ensured during the Saturn epoch. The processes of destruction in our body take place precisely during the day, under the influence of light; but light was not yet present during the old Saturn era. Thus, the Saturn activity was a constructive one for our physical body. Now, however, this constructive activity had to be maintained at least for a certain time, even when light was later added during the old Sun era. This could only be achieved by Saturn beings remaining behind to carry out the building-up. You see, then, that it was necessary in cosmic evolution for the Saturn beings to be retained during our sleep, so that when no light is present, they might carry out the rebuilding of the destroyed physical body. Thus the remaining Saturn beings must be woven into our existence. Without them, we would simply be destroyed. We must have a state of alternation, an interplay of solar beings and Saturn beings, of beings of light and beings of darkness. So if the activity of the beings of light were to be properly guided by the Elohim, then they had to literally weave into their work the work of the dark beings, the beings of darkness. In cosmic activity, there is no possibility of existence unless dark power is woven into the light power everywhere. And in this interweaving, as it were, in the net-weaving of light power and dark power, lies one of the secrets of cosmic existence, of cosmic alchemy. This secret is touched upon in the Rosicrucian drama where Johannes Thomasius ascends into the Devachan and where one of Mary’s companions, Astrid, is given the task of weaving the dark force into the light force; indeed, in these very sentences from Maria’s conversation with the three companions, there are countless cosmic secrets that can be studied for a long, long time to unravel them.

[ 15 ] We must therefore conclude that, when we consider our present existence, we must view this interplay—so to speak—between solar light forces and Saturnian dark forces as a necessity of our existence. So when the Elohim employed the spirits of the personality as their subordinate beings in the weaving of the light force—in that work performed upon us humans or upon the ‘beings of the Earth’ in general during the influence of the light—they had to assign the backward Saturn-like beings to them as companions. They had to have the entire work of the universe woven together from the truly advanced and the backward Archai. The backward Archai work in darkness. Therefore, to put it simply, the Elohim do not merely employ the beings designated as yom, but they set against them those who work in the power of darkness. And so it is said, with a wonderfully realistic description of the facts: And the Elohim, they called that which moved as spirits in the light, yom, day; but that which moved in the darkness, they called laylah. — And this is not our abstract night; these are the Saturnic Archai, who at that time had not yet advanced to the solar stage, and these are also those who are still active within us today during our night’s sleep, working upon our physical and etheric bodies as constructive forces. This mysterious term, laj’lah, which has given rise to all manner of mythological formations, is neither our abstract “night,” nor is it anything that could give cause to think of the mythological. It is nothing other than the name for the backward-remaining Archai, for those who combine their work with that of the advanced Archai.

[ 16 ] So, in the relevant passage of Genesis, we have essentially said: The Elohim outlined the broad contours of existence; for the subordinate work, they enlisted the advanced Archai, and they appointed as their helpers those who, in resignation—so that existence might come into being—had remained behind in darkness on the Saturn stage. — Thus, we have jom and laj’lah as the two opposites of groups of beings who are helpers of the Elohim and who stand on the level, let us say, of the spirits of time, the spirits of personality. We see existence woven together from spirits of form and personality, from advanced and backward beings of these two respective levels.

[ 17 ] Now that we have answered these questions regarding what has been described in a reasonably satisfactory manner—though there is an infinite amount more behind all these things—another question might arise, and it will be on the tip of everyone’s tongue: What about the other hierarchies? After all, as we descend from the Spirits of Form within the hierarchies, we first distinguish the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, and then the so-called Archangels, Archangeloi, or Fire Spirits. Does Genesis not speak to us at all about these? — Let us take a closer look and clarify for ourselves what the situation actually is with these Fire Spirits. We know that during the Sun stage they had reached the human stage. They progressed through the Moon stage to the Earth stage. They are the beings who are intimately connected with all that we can call the solar, for it was precisely during the Sun stage that they attained their human stage. Now, when during the ancient Lunar Age the necessity arose for the Solar to separate from the Earthly—which in that ancient time was the Lunar—then naturally these beings, who had passed through their most important stage on the Sun and were, so to speak, naturally connected to the Solar, remained united with the Solar as well. So when the Lunar, which later became the Earthly, separated from the Solar, these beings did not remain connected to the separating Earthly or Lunar, but to the Solar. They are the beings who primarily act upon this Earthly from the outside.

[ 18 ] I have already indicated to you that, in the evolution from the Saturn-like to the Sun-like, the plant-like form was able to emerge on the Sun as the highest stage. The animal form, that which possesses an inner life, could only come into being through a separation, a division. It was therefore only during the lunar phase that something animal-like could emerge. An influence from outside had to take place. In Genesis, up to the so-called third day of creation, we are not told that anything from outside had been at work. And it is precisely in the transition from the so-called third to the fourth day of creation that it is of great significance that we are told of the fourth day that the luminous forces, the luminous beings, became active from the outside—that is to say, just as in the old lunar state the Sun shone upon the Moon from the outside, so now the Sun and the Moon shone upon the Earth from the outside. But this means nothing less than that up to this moment all the forces that are within the earthly realm itself could be active. Up to that point, everything that constituted earlier stages could be repeated; what could arise anew was that which has its central forces within the earthly being itself. Thus, we saw yesterday how the state of heat is repeated in the spirit of the Elohim who hovered over the waters, how light is repeated in the moment designated by the words “Let there be light,” and how the state of the sound ether is repeated where these sound-etheric forces strike and separate the upper from the lower. This is depicted in the account usually referred to as the second day of creation. Then we saw how the life-ether strikes on the so-called third day of creation, where everything that can be brought about by the life-ether—the sprouting greenery—emerges from the earthly realm, from the new state. But for anything animal-like to find a place on our Earth, what might be called a “radiation from without,” a working of forces from outside, must be repeated. That is why Genesis quite appropriately tells us nothing of anything animal-like for the periods when it tells us nothing yet of the forces acting upon the Earth from cosmic space. It tells us there only of the plant-like. All beings contained in the formation of the Earth were at the plant-like stage. The animal-like could only begin when the beings of light acted from the surrounding space.

[ 19 ] What happened there is now—just look at countless Bible translations!—usually translated in such a way that it can be rendered in German with the words: “And the Elohim set the signs for the seasons, days, and years.” Now we have come to know some commentators and exegetes who have begun to think. But in today’s world, where people disdain to look for real reasons, the fate of commentators is that they can barely begin to think, let alone think things through to the end. I have now come across some such commentators who have realized that what stands there as the common translation—“And they set signs for the seasons, days, and years”—is actually nonsense. I would really like to meet the person who can make any sense of that sentence. But what does it actually say?

[ 20 ] If one wishes to translate this passage with genuine sincerity and fidelity, with a true sense of what an ancient Hebrew sage intended by these words, and with philological rigor, then one must say: Here, too, we are not dealing with “signs,” but with living entities—those entities that are at work here, revealing themselves in the sequence of temporal events. — And one could correctly translate: And the Elohim set in their places the organizers of the course of time for the beings of the Earth, the organizers of particularly significant points in time, of longer or shorter periods, what is usually rendered as “year and day.” Reference is thus made to the organizers who stand below the level of the Archai and who order life. The spirits of time, the Archai, have the task of doing what lies one level below the task of the Elohim. Then come the organizers, the sign-setters for what, in turn, is to be organized and grouped within the activity of the Archai. But these are none other than the Archangels. And we may therefore say: At the very moment when Genesis indicates that something is happening not only within the earthly body but that forces are acting in from without, it also allows the entry of those beings who were already connected to the solar existence—the organizing Archangels, who stand one level below the Archai. While the Archai still act, as it were, as Aeons, they use the Archangels—the bearers of light who work within our sphere—as instruments for the unfolding of their powers. — That is to say, the Archangels act from cosmic space through the constellations of the beings of light surrounding the Earth in such a way that the great orders, which are actually determined by the Archai, are now carried out.

[ 21 ] Those who attended the lecture series in Christiania will recall that the Archai still stand behind what we today call the Zeitgeist. When we look around at the order of world affairs, we find, for example, that in every age there are a number of peoples. Of these peoples, you will be able to say: For a certain time, a Zeitgeist prevails that encompasses everything, but alongside it, the particular national spirits reign, as it were, as subordinate spirits. — Just as the Zeitgeists reign today and the Archai stand behind them — I characterized this in my Christiania lectures — so the Archangels stand behind what are called the national spirits. In a certain sense, they are essentially the national spirits. Even Genesis points to the fact that even in times when human beings did not yet exist, these spiritual beings were the organizing forces.

[ 22 ] So we must say: The Elohim brought about the creation of light; they revealed themselves through the light. But for the lesser activities within the light, they employed the Archai, who stand below them in the hierarchical order and are designated by the word yom, and they placed at their side the beings who must necessarily be woven into the web of existence so that, alongside the activity in the light, the corresponding activity of darkness may come into being. Alongside jom they placed laj’lah, which is usually translated as “night.” But then the task was to proceed further, to specialize the development further. To do this, other beings had to be removed from the order of the hierarchy. So when one says that the Elohim or Spirits of Form revealed themselves through the light and had the affairs of light and darkness managed by the Archai, one must go on to say: But now the Elohim went further, further specialized existence, and for the activities that are now intended not only to establish existence in the plant-like exterior but also to evoke an interior—an interior that can become a mirror image of the exterior— they established the archangels, and they entrusted to them that activity which must flow into our Earth from without, so that not only plant-like life may spring forth, but also animal-like life, a life weaving inwardly in imagination and feeling.

[ 23 ] Thus we see how Genesis quite appropriately points to these archangels as well, provided one understands things correctly. If you approach the exegesis of the common commentators with a critical mind, you will find it unsatisfying in every respect. But if you draw upon that from which Genesis sprang—the secret science—you will be able to penetrate Genesis with clarity in every respect. Everything will appear to you in a new light, and this text, which would otherwise remain misunderstood due to the impossibility of translating the ancient living words into our language, will be preserved for humanity as a document that speaks for all time.