Extrusion of the Moon
ONE MUST be quite clear about the fact that only
later did man assume the dense substantiality which he has today, and
that he did this very gradually. If one wants to form an idea of his
corporeality on the level of development which is being discussed,
one can best do this by imagining it as similar to water vapor or to
a cloud suspended in the air. But of course this idea approaches
reality in a completely external way. For the fire cloud
“man” is internally alive and organized. In comparison to
what man became later, however, one must imagine him at this stage as
in a state of soul slumber, and as only very dimly conscious.
Everything which can be called intelligence, understanding, reason is
lacking in this being. Floating rather than striding, it moves
forward, aside, backward, to all sides, by means of four limb-like
organs. For the rest, something has already been said about the soul
of this being.
One must not think however that the movements or
vital activities of these beings occurred in an irrational or
irregular fashion. On the contrary, they were completely regular.
Everything which happened had sense and significance. But the
directing force of understanding was not in the beings themselves.
They were directed by an understanding which was outside of them.
Higher, more mature beings than they, surrounded and directed them.
For the important, basic quality of the fire mist was that on the
level of their existence which we have characterized, human beings
could embody themselves in it, but that at the same time higher
beings also could take on a body in it and could enter into a fully
reciprocal relationship with men. Man had brought his impulses,
instincts, and passions to the point where they could be formed in
the fire mist. The other beings mentioned, however, could create
within this fire mist by means of their reason and their intelligent
activity. These beings had higher capacities by which they reached
into the upper regions. Their decisions and impulses emanated from
these regions, but the actual effects of these decisions appeared in
the fire mist. Everything men did on earth resulted from the regular
association of the fire mist body with that of these higher
beings.
One can say that man was striving to ascend. He
was to develop qualities in the fire mist which in a human sense were
higher than those he had previously possessed. The other beings,
however, were striving downward toward the material They were on the
way to bringing their creative powers to bear on increasingly dense
material forms. This does not represent a degradation for them in the
broader sense of the term. One must be quite clear on this point. It
requires a higher power and capacity to direct denser forms of
substantiality than to control those less dense. In earlier periods
of their development, these higher beings too had had a limited power
like that of man today. Like present-day man, they once had power
only over what took place “within them.” At that time,
coarse, external matter did not obey them. Now they were striving
toward a condition in which they were to direct outer events
magically. Thus they were ahead of man in the period described. Man
strove upward in order that he might first embody the understanding
in more refined matter, so that later it could act toward the
external; they had already incorporated the understanding into
themselves at an earlier period, and now received magic power in
order to articulate the understanding into the world around them. Man
was moving upward through the stage of the fire mist; they
were penetrating downward through the same stage, toward an
extension of their power.
Those forces especially, which man knows as the
forces of his lower passions or impulses, can be active in the fire
mist. Man, as well as the higher beings, makes use of these forces at
the stage of the fire mist. These forces act in such a way within the
human form described above that man can develop the organs which
enable him to think, and thus to develop a personality. On the other
hand, these forces work in the higher beings at this stage in such a
manner that they can employ them impersonally to create the
arrangements of the earth. In this way, forms which are images of the
rules of the understanding, come into existence on earth through
these beings. Through the action of the forces of passion, organs of
personal understanding develop in man; through the same forces,
organizations filled with wisdom develop around him.
One should now imagine this process to be somewhat
further advanced; or rather, one should represent to oneself what is
written in the Akasha Chronicle concerning a somewhat later point in
time. At that moment the moon split off from the earth. This event
caused a great revolution. The objects which surround man lost a
great part of their heat. These objects thereby entered into a
coarser and denser substantiality. Man must live in this cooler
environment. He can do this only if he changes his own
substantiality. With this densification of substance is connected a
change in form. For the condition of fire mist on earth has been
replaced by a completely different state. As a consequence, the
higher beings which we have described no longer have the fire mist
available to them as a medium for their activity. Now they can no
longer exercise their influence on those soul activities of man which
had previously constituted their main field of action. They have
received power over the forms of man which they themselves had
previously created from the fire mist.
This change in influence goes hand in hand with a
transformation of the human form. One half of this form, together
with two organs of movement, now becomes the lower half of the body,
which functions mainly as the carrier of nutrition and reproduction.
The other half of this form is turned upward, so to speak. The
remaining two organs of movement become the rudiments of hands. Those
organs which previously had served for nutrition and reproduction are
transformed into organs of speech and thought. Man has become
upright. This is the immediate consequence of the extrusion of the
moon. With the moon all those forces disappeared from the earth
through which, during his fire mist period, man could still
impregnate himself and produce beings like himself without external
influence. His whole lower half — that which one often calls
the lower nature — now came under the rationally formative
influence of the higher entities. What these entities previously
could regulate within man, since the mass of forces now split off
with the moon was then still combined with the earth, they now have
to organize through the interaction of the two sexes. It is therefore
understandable that the moon is regarded by the initiates as the
symbol of the force of reproduction. After all, these forces do
inhere in it, so to speak. The higher beings we have described have
an affinity with the moon, are in a sense, moon gods. Before the
separation of the moon and, through its power, they acted within man;
afterwards, their forces acted from outside on the reproduction of
man. One could also say that those noble spiritual forces which
previously had acted on the still higher impulses of man through the
medium of the fire mist, had now descended in order to exercise their
power in the area of reproduction. Indeed, noble and divine forces
exercise a regulating and organizing action in this area. With this
an important proposition of the secret doctrine has been expressed,
namely, the higher, more noble divine forces have an affinity with
the — apparently — lower forces of human nature.
The word “apparently” must here be understood in its full
significance. For it would be a complete misconception of occult
truths if one were to see something base in the forces of
reproduction as such. Only when man misuses these forces, when he
compels them to serve his passions and instincts, is there something
pernicious in them, but not when he ennobles them through the
insight that a divine spiritual power lies in them. Then he will
place these forces at the service of the development of the earth,
and through his forces of reproduction he will carry out the
intentions of the higher entities we have characterized. Mystery
science teaches that this whole subject is to be ennobled, is to be
placed under divine laws, but is not to be mortified. The latter can
only be the consequence of occult principles which have been
understood in a purely external fashion and distorted into a
misconceived asceticism.
It will be seen that in his second, his upper
half, man has developed something upon which the higher beings we
have described have no influence. Other beings now acquire power over
this upper half. In earlier stages of their development, these beings
advanced further than men, but not as far as the moon gods. They
could not exercise their power in the fire mist. But now that
something they themselves had lacked previously has been formed in
the human organs of understanding through the fire mist, their time
has come. At an earlier time, the moon gods had attained an
understanding capable of acting externally. This understanding
already existed in them when the period of the fire mist began. They
could act externally on the things of earth. In earlier times, the
lower beings we have just mentioned had not attained such an
understanding which acts outwardly. Therefore, the time of the fire
mist found them unprepared. Now, however, an understanding is
present. It exists in men. These beings seize upon this human
understanding in order to act on the things of earth by means of it.
As the moon gods previously had acted on the whole man, they
now act only on his lower half, while the influence of the lower
entities just mentioned acts on his upper half. Thus man comes under
a double leadership. In his lower part he is under the power of the
moon gods; in his developed personality, however, he comes under the
leadership of those entities which are summed up under the name
“Lucifer,” the name of their regent. The Luciferic gods
thus complete their own development by making use of the awakened
human powers of understanding. Previously they had not been able to
attain this level. At the same time they give man the predisposition
to freedom, to the discrimination between “good” and
“evil.” While it is true that the human organ of
understanding has been formed entirely under the leadership of the
moon gods, these gods would have left it to slumber; they were not
interested in making use of it. They possessed their own powers of
understanding. In their own interest, the Luciferic beings were
concerned with developing the human understanding and directing it
toward the things of earth. Thereby for men they became the teachers
of all that can be accomplished by the human understanding. But they
could not be anything more than stimulators. They could not
develop an understanding within themselves, but only in
man. Thus there developed two directions of activity on earth.
One proceeded directly from the moon divinities and was lawfully
regulated and rational from the very beginning. The moon gods had
already served their apprenticeship and were now beyond the
possibility of error. The Luciferic gods which acted on men had yet
to win their way to such illumination. With their guidance man had to
learn to find the laws of his being. Under Lucifer's leadership he
himself had to become as “one of the gods.”
Here the question arises: If in their development
the Luciferic entities had not reached the stage of intelligent
creation in the fire mist, at what stage had they stopped? To what
point in earth development were they able to work together with the
moon gods? The Akasha Chronicle gives information on this. They could
participate in earthly creation up to the point at which the sun
split off from the earth. It appears that while they performed
somewhat lesser work than the moon gods up to this time, nevertheless
they belonged to the host of divine creators. After the separation of
earth and sun, an activity began on the earth — the work in the
fire mist — for which only the moon gods, but not the Luciferic
spirits, were prepared. Therefore, a period of pause and of waiting
began for these spirits. The Luciferic spirits could emerge once more
from their state of rest when the human beings began to work at the
development of their organs of understanding, after the ebbing of the
general fire mist. For the creation of the understanding is related
to the activity of the sun. The dawn of the understanding in human
nature is the lighting up of an inner sun. This is said not only in a
metaphorical, but also in a quite real sense. When the epoch of the
fire mist had ebbed from the earth, these spirits found within man an
opportunity to resume their activity connected with the
sun.
It now becomes clear whence the name Lucifer, that
is, “the bearer of light,” originates, and why these
beings are designated as “sun gods” in mystery
science.
All that follows can only be understood if one
looks back to periods preceding the development of the earth. This
will be done in the next chapters of the “Akasha
Chronicle.” The development through which the beings connected
with earth passed on other planets before appearing on the earth,
will be shown there. In addition, one will become more fully
acquainted with the nature of the “moon gods” and of the
“sun gods.” Simultaneously, the development of the
animal, plant and mineral realms will become entirely clear.
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