The Division into Sexes
MUCH AS THE HUMAN FORM in those ancient times
described in the preceding chapters differed from the form of
present-day man, one comes to conditions still more dissimilar if one
goes even further back in the history of mankind. For only in the
course of time did the forms of man and woman develop from an older,
basic form in which human beings were neither the one nor the other,
but rather were both at once. He who wants to form an idea of these
enormously distant periods of the past must however liberate himself
completely from the habitual conceptions taken from what man sees
around him.
The times into which we now look back lie somewhat
before the middle of the epoch which in the preceding passages was
designated as the Lemurian. At that time the human body still
consisted of soft and malleable materials. The other forms of earth
also were still soft and malleable. As opposed to its later hardened
condition, earth was still in a welling, more fluid one. As the human
soul at that time embodied itself in matter, it could adapt this
matter to itself in a much greater degree than later. That the soul
takes on a male or a female body is due to the fact that the
development of external terrestrial nature forces the one or the
other upon it. While the material substances had not yet become
rigid, the soul could force these substances to obey its own laws. It
made of the body an impression of its own nature. But when [it] became
denser the soul had to submit to the laws impressed upon this matter
by external terrestrial nature. As long as the soul could still
control matter, it formed its body as neither male nor female, but,
instead gave it qualities which embraced both at the same time. For
the soul is simultaneously male and female. It carries these two
natures in itself. Its male element is related to what is
called will, its female element to what is called
imagination.
The external formation of earth resulted in that
the body assumed a one-sided form. The male body has taken a form
which is conditioned by the element of will; the female body on the
other hand, bears the stamp of imagination. Thus it comes about that
the two-sexed, male-female soul inhabits a single-sexed, male or
female body. In the course of development the body had taken a form
determined by the external terrestrial forces, so that it was no
longer possible for the soul to pour its whole inner energy into this
body. The soul had to retain something of this energy within itself
and could let only a part of it flow into the body.
If one continues with the Akasha Chronicle, the
following becomes apparent. In an ancient period, human forms appear
before us which are soft, malleable and quite different from later
ones. They still carry the nature of man and woman within themselves
to an equal degree. In the course of time, the material substances
become denser; the human body appears in two forms, one of which
begins to resemble the subsequent shape of man, the other that of
woman. When this difference had not yet appeared, every human being
could produce another human being out of himself. Impregnation was
not an external process, but was something which took, place inside
the human body itself. By becoming male or female, the body lost this
possibility of self-impregnation. It had to act together with another
body in order to produce a new human being.
The division into sexes takes place when the earth
enters a certain stage of its densification. The density of matter
inhibits a portion of the force of reproduction. That portion of this
force which is still active needs an external complementation through
the opposite force of another human being. The soul however must
retain a portion of its earlier energy within itself, in man as well
as in woman. It cannot use this portion in the physical external
world.
This portion of energy is now directed toward the
interior of man. It cannot emerge toward the exterior; therefore it
is freed for inner organs.
Here an important point in the development of
mankind appears. Previously that which is called spirit, the faculty
of thought, could not find a place in man. For this faculty would
have found no organs for exercising its functions. The soul had
employed all its energy toward the exterior, in order to build up the
body. But now the energy of the soul, which finds no external
employment, can become associated with the spiritual energy, and
through this association those organs are developed in the body which
later make of man a thinking being. Thus man could use a portion of
the energy which previously he employed for the production of beings
like himself, in order to perfect his own nature. The force by which
mankind forms a thinking brain for itself is the same by which man
impregnated himself in ancient times. The price of thought is
single-sexedness. By no longer impregnating themselves, but rather by
impregnating each other, human beings can turn a part of their
productive energy within, and so become thinking creatures. Thus the
male and the female body each represent an imperfect external
embodiment of the soul, but thereby they become more perfect
inwardly.
This transformation of man takes place very slowly
and gradually. Little by little, the younger, single-sexed male or
female forms appear beside the old double-sexed ones.
It is again a kind of fertilization which takes
place in man when he becomes a creature endowed with spirit. The
inner organs which can be built up by the surplus soul energy are
fructified by the spirit. In itself the soul is two-sided:
male-female. In ancient times it also formed its body on this basis.
Later it can form its body only in such a way that for the external
it acts together with another body; thereby the soul itself receives
the capacity to act together with the spirit. For the external, man
is henceforward fertilized from the outside, for the internal, from
the inside, through the spirit. One can say that the male body now
has a female soul, the female body a male soul. This inner
one-sidedness of man is compensated by fertilization through the
spirit. The one-sidedness is abolished. Both the male soul in the
female body and the female soul in the male body again become
double-sexed through fructification by the spirit. Thus man and woman
are different in their external form; internally their spiritual
one-sidedness is rounded out to a harmonious whole. Internally,
spirit and soul are fused into one unit. Upon the male soul in woman
the action of the spirit is female, and thus renders it male-female;
upon the female soul in man the action of the spirit is male, and
thus renders it male-female also. The double-sexedness of man has
retired from the external world where it existed in the pre-Lemurian
period, into his interior.
One can see that the higher inner essence of a
human being has nothing to do with man or woman. The inner equality,
however, does result from a male soul in woman, and correspondingly
from a female soul in man. The union with the spirit finally brings
about the equality; but the fact that before the establishment of
this equality there exists a difference involves a secret of
human nature. The understanding of this secret is of great
significance for all mystery science. It is the key to important
enigmas of life. For the present we are not permitted to lift the
veil which is spread over this secret . . .
Thus physical man has developed from
double-sexedness to single-sexedness, to the separation into male and
female. In this way man has become a spiritual being of the kind
which he is now. But one must not suppose that no beings which
possessed cognition had been in contact with the earth before then.
When one follows the Akasha Chronicle it does indeed appear that in
the first Lemurian period, later physical man, because of his double
sex, was a totally different being from that which one today
designates as man. He could not connect any sensory perceptions with
thoughts; he did not think. His life was one of impulses. His soul
expressed itself only in instincts, in appetites, in animal desires
and so on. His consciousness was dreamlike; he lived in
dullness.
But there were other beings among these men. These
of course were also double-sexed. For at the stage of terrestrial
development of that time no male or female human body could be
produced. The external conditions did not yet exist for this. But
there were other beings which could acquire knowledge and wisdom in
spite of their double-sexedness. This was possible because they had
gone through a quite different development in a still more remote
past. It was possible for their soul to be fructified by the spirit
without first awaiting the development of the inner organs of the
physical body of man. By means of the physical brain, the soul of
contemporary man can think only that which it receives from the
outside through the physical senses. This is the condition to which
the development of man's soul has led. The human soul had to wait
until a brain existed which became the mediator with the spirit.
Without this detour, this soul would have remained spiritless.
It would have remained arrested at the stage of dreamlike
consciousness. This was different among the superhuman beings
mentioned above. In previous stages their soul had developed organs
which needed nothing physical in order to enter into contact with the
spirit. Their knowledge and wisdom were supersensibly
acquired. Such knowledge is called intuitive. Contemporary man
attains such intuition only at a later stage of his development; this
intuition makes it possible for him to enter into contact with the
spirit without sensory mediation. He must make a detour through the
world of sensory substance. This detour is called the descent of the
human soul into matter, or popularly, “the fall of
man.”
Because of a different earlier development, the
superhuman beings did not have to take part in this descent. Since
their soul had already attained a higher stage, their consciousness
was not dreamlike, but inwardly clear. Their acquisition of knowledge
and wisdom was a clairvoyance which had no need of senses or
of an organ of thought. The wisdom according to which the world is
built shone into their soul directly. Therefore they could become the
leaders of youthful humanity which was still sunk in dullness. They
were the bearers of a “primeval wisdom,” toward the
understanding of which mankind is only now struggling along the
detour mentioned above. They differed from what one calls
“man” through the fact that wisdom shone upon them as the
sunlight does upon us, as a free gift “from above.”
“Man” was in a different position. He had to acquire
wisdom by the work of the senses and of the organ of thought.
Originally it did not come to him as a free gift. He had to
desire it. Only when the desire for wisdom lived in
man, did he acquire it through his senses and his organ of thought.
Thus a new impulse had to awaken in the soul: the desire, the
longing for knowledge. In its earlier stages the human soul
could not have had this longing. The impulses of the soul were
directed only toward materialization in that which assumed form
externally — in what took place in it as a dreamlike life
— but not toward cognition of the external world, nor toward
knowledge. It is with the division into sexes that the impulse toward
knowledge first appears.
The superhuman beings received wisdom by way of
clairvoyance just because they did not have this desire for it. They
waited until wisdom shone into them, as we wait for the sunlight,
which we cannot produce at night, but which must come to us by itself
in the morning.
The longing for knowledge is produced by the fact
that the soul develops inner organs, the brain and so forth, by means
of which it gains possession of knowledge. This is a consequence of
the circumstance that a part of the energy of the soul is no longer
directed toward the outside, but toward the inside. The superhuman
beings however, which have not carried out this separation of their
spiritual forces, direct all the energy of their soul toward the
outside. Therefore that force is also available to them externally
for fructification by the spirit, which “man” turns
inward for the development of the organs of cognition.
Now that force by means of which one human being
turns toward the outside in order to act together with another
is love. The superhuman beings directed all their love outward
in order to let universal wisdom flow into their soul.
“Man” however can only direct a part of it outward.
“Man” became sensual, and thereby his love became
sensual. He draws away from the outside world that part of his nature
which he directs toward his inner development. And thus that arises
which one calls selfishness. When he became man or woman in
the physical body, “man” could surrender himself with
only a part of his being; with the other part he separated himself
from the world around him. He became selfish. And his action toward
the outside became selfish; his striving after inner development also
became selfish. He loved because he desired, and likewise he
thought because he desired wisdom.
The selfless, all-loving natures, the leaders, the
superhuman beings, confronted man, who was still childishly
selfish.
The soul, which among these beings does not reside
in a male or female body, is itself male-female. It loves without
desire. Thus the innocent soul of man loved before the
division into sexes, but at that time it could not understand,
because it was still at an inferior stage, that of dream
consciousness. The soul of the superhuman beings also loves in this
manner, however, with understanding because of its advanced
development. “Man” must pass through selfishness in order
to attain selflessness again at a higher stage, where, however, it
will be combined with completely clear consciousness.
The task of the superhuman natures, of the great
leaders, was that they impressed upon youthful man their own
character, that of love. They could do this only for that part
of the spiritual energy which was directed outward. Thus sensual
love was produced. It is therefore a consequence of the activity
of the soul in a male or female body. Sensual love became the force
of physical human development. This love brings man and woman
together insofar as they are physical beings. Upon this love rests
the progress of physical humanity.
It was only over this love that the superhuman
natures had power. That part of human soul energy which is directed
inward and is to bring about cognition by the detour through the
senses — that part is withdrawn from the power of those
superhuman beings. However, they themselves had never descended to
the development of corresponding inner organs. They could clothe the
impulse toward the external in love, because love acting toward the
external was part of their own nature. Because of this, a gulf opened
between them and youthful mankind. Love, at first in sensual form,
they could plant in man; knowledge they could not give, for their own
knowledge had never made the detour through the inner organs which
man was now developing. They could speak no language which a creature
with a brain could have understood.
The inner organs of man mentioned above first
became ripe for a contact with the spirit only at that stage of
terrestrial existence which lies in the middle of the Lemurian
period; but they had already been formed incompletely, at a much
earlier stage of development. For the soul had already gone through
physical embodiments in preceding times. It had lived in dense
substance, not on earth but on other celestial bodies. Details about
this must be given later. At present we shall say only that the
terrestrial beings previously lived on another planet, where, in
accordance with the prevailing conditions, they developed up to the
point at which they were when they arrived on earth. They put off the
substances of this preceding planet like clothing and, at the level
of development which they thus attained, became pure soul germs with
the capacity to perceive, to feel and so forth — in short, to
lead that dreamlike life which remained peculiar to them in the first
stages of their terrestrial existence.
The superhuman entities previously mentioned, the
leaders in the field of love, had already been so perfect on the
preceding planet that they did not have to descend to develop the
rudiments of those inner organs.
But there were other beings, not as far advanced
as these leaders of love, who on the preceding planet were still
numbered among “men,” but at that period were hurrying
ahead of men. Thus, at the beginning of the formation of the earth,
they were further advanced than men, but still were at the stage
where knowledge must be acquired through inner organs. These beings
were in a special position. They were too far advanced to pass
through the physical human body, male or female, but on the other
hand, were not so far advanced that they could act through full
clairvoyance like the leaders of love. They could not yet be
beings of love; they could no longer be “men.”
Thus they could only continue their own development as half
superhuman beings, in which they were aided by men. They could speak
to creatures with a brain in a language which the latter could
understand. Thereby the human soul energy which was turned inward was
stimulated, and could connect itself with knowledge and wisdom. It
was thus that wisdom of a human kind first appeared on earth. The
“half superhuman beings” mentioned above could use this
human wisdom in order to achieve for themselves that of perfection
which they still lacked. In this manner they became the stimulators
of human wisdom. One therefore calls them bringers of light
(Lucifer). Youthful mankind thus had two kinds of leaders: beings of
love and beings of wisdom. Human nature was balanced between love and
wisdom when it assumed its present form on this earth. By the beings
of love it was stimulated to physical development, by the beings of
wisdom to the perfection of the inner nature. As a consequence of
physical development, humanity advances from generation to
generation, forms new tribes and races; through inner development
individuals grow toward inner perfection, become knowing and wise
men, artists, technicians etc. Physical mankind strides from race to
race; each race hands down its sensorily perceptible qualities to the
following one through physical development. Here the law of heredity
holds sway. The children carry within themselves the physical
characteristics of the fathers. Beyond this lies a process of
spiritual-soul perfection which can only take place through the
development of the soul itself.
With this we stand before the law of the
development of the soul within terrestrial existence. This
development is connected with the law and mystery of birth and
death.
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