|
|
|
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
|
|
Occult Science - An Outline
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
|
|
Occult Science - An Outline
Man and the Evolution of the World
If we would form an idea pictorial, but approximating to
reality of the conditions during Saturn evolution, we must bear
in mind that of the things and beings now belonging to the Earth and
included in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms of Nature,
virtually nothing was in existence then. The beings of these three
kingdoms arose only in later periods of evolution. Of the beings of
the Earth which are physically perceptible today man alone was present
at that time, and of him only the physical body. But even now there
are, belonging to the Earth, not only the beings of the mineral, plant
and human kingdoms, but other beings too, who do not manifest in
physical corporeality. Such beings existed also in the Saturn
evolution, and their activity upon the scene of Saturn resulted in the
Subsequent evolution of man.
If we turn, first of all, with spiritual organs of perception, not to
the beginning or end but to the middle period of evolution of the
Saturn embodiment of the Earth, we find a condition consisting
essentially of warmth alone. There is nothing to be found
of gaseous or liquid, let alone of solid constituents. It is only in
the later embodiments that these other states emerge. Let us assume
that a human being with present-day sense-organs were to approach this
Saturn as an observer. Of all the sense-impressions of which he is
capable, nothing would meet him there, save the sensation of warmth.
Imagine him approaching ever nearer and nearer. The most he would
perceive as he reached it would be that the part of space occupied by
Saturn was in a different warmth-condition from the remaining spatial
environment. Nor would he find the Saturn space itself uniformly warm.
Warmer and cooler portions would be alternating with one another in
the most diverse ways. Along certain lines, radiant warmth would be
perceived. Such lines would not simply go on and on in one direction;
irregular figures would be arising from the differences of warmth.
Thus he would have before him a kind of heavenly body, a being in the
cosmos, inwardly organized and differentiated, appearing in manifold
and constantly changing states, and composed of warmth alone.
It will be difficult for man of today to imagine something that
consists of warmth alone, for is not accustomed to recognize heat or
warmth as existing in itself; he is accustomed only to perceive it in
connection with hot or cold gaseous, liquid or solid bodies. To one
who has entirely adopted the physical conceptions of our time it will
appear senseless to speak of warmth in the way we have
done. He may well reply that there are solid, liquid and gaseous
bodies, but heat or warmth denotes no more
than a condition pertaining to one or other of these three. When the
smallest particles of a gas are in motion, he will say we perceive
this motion as warmth, but where there is no gas there can be no such
motion, therefore no warmth.
The researcher in spiritual science sees the matter differently.
Warmth, to him, is something of which he can speak in the same sense
as of a gas, or of a liquid or solid body. It is only a yet finer
substance than gas. Moreover, to him the gas itself is none other than
warmth condensed, in the sense in which a liquid is condensed vapor or
a solid body condensed liquid. Thus the spiritual scientist speaks of
warmth-bodies, just as he speaks of gaseous and vaporous bodies.
To follow the spiritual researcher into this sphere, it is only
necessary to admit the existence of a perception belonging entirely to
the soul. In the world that is presented to the physical senses,
warmth undoubtedly appears as a condition of what is solid, liquid or
gaseous. But this is no more than the external side of warmth, or we
may say, its effect. And it is really of this effect of warmth alone
that physicists speak, not of its inner nature. Let us try for once to
look away from the warmth-effects that we receive from outside and fix
out attention purely on the inner experience we have when we say the
words: I feel warm, or I feel cold. It is this
inner experience alone that can give an idea of what Saturn was in the
above-described period of its evolution. We might have passed right
through the part of space it occupied; there would have been no gas to
exert pressure, no solid or liquid body from which impressions of
light could be received. But at each point of space we should have
felt, inwardly and without impressions from outside: Here
there is this or that degree of warmth.
In a heavenly body of this kind there are not the conditions for the
animal, plant or mineral creation of our present world. (Hence it can
hardly be necessary to remark that the suggested assumption could not
possibly take place in fact. A man of the present day could not, just
as he is, confront Old Saturn as an observer. The suggestion had only
an explanatory purpose.)
The beings of whom supersensible cognition becomes aware when
observing Saturn were at a very different stage of evolution from the
present, sense-perceptible beings of the Earth. Beings appear there,
to begin with, who had not a physical body like the body man has
today. When physical body is spoken of, we must beware of
thinking of man's present physical corporeality. For we have carefully
to distinguish between physical body and mineral body. A physical body
is one that is governed by the physical laws that are observable today
in the mineral kingdom. The present physical body of man is not only
governed by the physical laws; it is also permeated with mineral
substance. On Saturn there can be as yet be no question of
physical-mineral body of this kind. There, there is only a physical
corporeality, governed by physical laws which laws express
themselves solely in warmth-effects. Thus the physical body on Saturn
is a delicate, tenuous, ethereal body-of-warmth. And the entire Saturn
consists of these warmth-bodies. They are the first beginnings of the
present physical-mineral body of man, which has evolved out of the old
warmth-body by receiving into it the gaseous, liquid and solid
substances that developed only at a later stage.
Among the Beings who come before the supersensible consciousness in
the moment when it is confronted by the Saturn stage of evolution, and
of whom we may speak as dwellers upon Saturn in addition to man, there
are for instance some who had no need of a physical body at all. On
the other hand they had one member beyond the members of man's being.
Man has the Spirit-Man as his highest member; these Beings have a
still higher one, and between etheric body and Spirit-Man they have
also all the other members that we find in man: astral body, Ego,
Spirit-Self, and Life-Spirit. As our Earth is surrounded by an
atmosphere, so too was Saturn, only with Saturn the atmosphere was of a
spiritual kind.1
For it consisted of Beings those
already mentioned, and other Beings too. And there was a continual
interaction between these Beings and the warmth-bodies of Saturn. The
Beings let down the members of their nature into Saturn's physical
warmth-bodies. And while in these themselves there was no life, the
life of the Beings that dwelt in their encircling sphere expressed
itself in them. The warmth-bodies might indeed by compared to mirrors;
only it was not the above-named Beings themselves that were mirrored
in them, but their life-conditions. In Saturn itself one could not
have discovered anything that was alive, and yet Saturn had a
vivifying influence on its environment in the heavenly spaces, for it
rayed back sent back, as it were an echo of the life
which was sent down to it. The whole of Saturn appeared like a mirror
of the heavenly life. Certain sublime Beings whose life Saturn rays
back, may be called Spirits of Wisdom. (In Christian spiritual science
they bear the name Kyriotetes, i.e. Dominions.) Their activity on
Saturn does not be any means begin with the middle epoch of evolution
which is here being described. Indeed in a certain sense it is by then
already at an end. Before they could become conscious of the
reflection of their own life, proceeding from the warmth-bodies of
Saturn, they had first to make these bodies capable of bringing about
such a reflection. Hence their activity began soon after the
commencement of Saturn evolution, at a time when the Saturn
corporeality was still chaotic substance which could not have
reflected anything.
In setting out to contemplate this chaotic, undifferentiated
substance, we have already transplanted ourselves in spiritual
observation to the beginning of Saturn evolution. What can be observed
there does not by any means bear the later character of warmth. To
characterize it, we can only speak of a quality which may be compared
to the human Will. Through and through, it is nothing else than Will.
Here therefore we are dealing with a condition that is purely of the
nature of the soul. If we look for the source of this Will, we find
that it arises from the outpouring of sublime Beings who had, by
stages scarcely to be even dimly divined, brought their evolution to
such a height that when the Saturn evolution began, they were able to
let Will pour forth from Their own being. When the outpouring has
lasted for a certain time, the activity of the Spirits of Wisdom
unites with the will, with the result that the Will, which up to now
might be said to have no inherent properties of its own, gradually
acquired the property of raying forth Life, raying it back into the
heavenly spaces.
The Beings who find Their blessedness in pouring out Will at the
beginning of Saturn may be called Spirits of Will. (In
Christian esoteric science they are called the Thrones.)
When by the working together of Will and Life a certain stage of
Saturn evolution has been reached, other Beings too begin to work.
They also are in the surrounding sphere of Saturn. We may call them
Spirits of Movement; in Christian terminology they are Dynamis or
Mights. They have no physical body and no life-body; their lowest
member is the astral body. When the Saturn bodies have attained the
faculty of reflecting life, the life which is thus rayed back can
become permeated with the properties which have their seat in the
astral bodies of the Spirits of Movement. As a result, it appears as
though expressions of emotion, feeling, and other soul-forces were
being hurled out from Saturn into the heavenly spaces. The entire
Saturn seems like a being that is ensouled, manifesting sympathies and
antipathies. But these manifestations are not its own; they are but
the reflection of the soul-activities of the Spirits of Movement.
When this too has lasted through a certain epoch, the activity of yet
other Beings begins, whom we will call Spirits of Form. Their lowest
member is also an astral body, but it is at a different stage in
evolution from the astral body of the Spirits of Movement. The
manifestations of feeling which the Spirits of Movement communicate to
the life that is rayed back from Saturn are of a general kind, whereas
the astral body of the Spirits of Form (in Christian language Exusiai
or Powers) works in such a way that it seems as though manifestations
are being hurled out into cosmic space from many single beings. The
Spirits of Movement, we might say, make Saturn as a whole appear as an
animate being endowed with soul. The Spirits of Form divide this life
of Saturn into so many separate living entities, so that eventually it
appears like a conglomeration of soul-beings.
Picture to yourself a mulberry or a blackberry, composed as it is of
ever so many tiny berries. To the supersensible observer Saturn looks
like this in the evolutionary epoch here described. It is composed of
the single Saturn beings who have no life or soul of their own, but
ray back the life and soul of the Beings that dwell around them.
And now at this stage in the evolution of Saturn certain Beings
intervene, who again have the astral body for their lowest member, but
have brought it on so far in its evolution that it works like a human
I of the present time. Through them the I looks down
from the surrounding spaces on to Saturn, and communicates its nature
to the single live beings. Hence something is sent forth
from Saturn into the heavenly spaces, that resembles the impression
made by human personality in our present cycle of life. The Beings who
bring this about may be called Spirits of Personality (in
Christian terminology they are the Archai, First Beginnings, or
Principalities.) These Beings communicate to the particles of the
Saturn body a semblance of the character of personality. The Spirits
of Personality have their real personality in the surrounding sphere.
They cause their own being to be rayed back to them from the Saturn
bodies, and this very process bestows upon the Saturn bodies the fine
substantiality which was described above as warmth.
Throughout the whole of Saturn there is no inwardness; but the Spirits
of Personality behold and recognize the image of their own inwardness,
in that it streams out to them as warmth from Saturn.
While all this is happening, the Spirits of Personality are at the
stage at which the human being is today. They are going through their
human epoch. To see this fact in its true light, we must
be ready to conceive that a being can be a human being
without necessarily having the form and figure man has today. The
Spirits of Personality are men upon Saturn. Their lowest
member is not the physical body but the astral body with the Ego.
Therefore they cannot express the experiences of their astral body in
a physical and an etheric body in the same way as can the man of
today. Nevertheless they not only have an I or Ego but are
aware of it, for the warmth of Saturn, by raying back this Ego, brings
it home to their consciousness. They are, in effect, human
beings under conditions differing from the earthly.
In the further course of Saturn evolution, facts of quite another kind
ensue. Hitherto it was all a reflection of life and feeling that were
outside; henceforth there is a kind of inner life. A life of light
begins, flickering here and there within the Saturn world and dying
down again. At some places a quivering of glowing light will appear,
at others something more like rapid lightning-flashes. The Saturn
warmth-bodies begin to glimmer and glisten, even to radiate light. The
attainment of this stage affords once more the possibility for certain
Beings to unfold their activity. These are the Beings who may be
designated Fire Spirits (in Christian terminology,
Archangeloi, Archangels.) They have an astral body of their own at
this stage of their existence but they cannot by themselves give it
any stimulus. They would be quite incapable of arousing any feelings
or sensation were it not for the fact that they can work upon the
warmth-bodies which have reached the stage here indicated. Working in
this way makes it possible for them to perceive their own existence;
they perceive it by the influence they exercise. They cannot say to
themselves I am, rather would they have to say: My
environment enables me to be. They have perception; indeed their
perceptions consist in the above-described light-effects on Saturn.
These are in a certain sense their I. This gives them a
peculiar form of consciousness. We may describe it as a
picture-consciousness. It may be conceived as of the nature of man's
dream-consciousness; only we must imagine it far more vivid, far more
animated than human dreaming. Nor is it a mere meaningless ebb and
flow of pictures; the dream-pictures of the Fire Spirits and the
warmth-bodies of Saturn, the seeds of the human sense-organs are first
implanted in the stream of evolution. The organs whereby today man
perceives the physical world light up in their first, delicate
ethereal beginnings. Phantoms-of-man, revealing as yet no other
outward sign than these light archetypes of the
sense-organs, become perceptible in Saturn to the faculty of
clairvoyance. Man's sense-organs are thus the fruits of the activity
of the Fire Spirits. But these are not the only Spirits concerned in
their creation. Simultaneously with the Fire Spirits, other Beings
appear upon the scene Beings so far advanced in evolution that
they are able to make use of the seeds of the sense-organs for
witnessing the cosmic processes of Saturn's life. These are the Beings
whom we may designate Spirits of Love (In Christian
language, Seraphim.) Were it not for them, the Fire Spirits could not
have the consciousness above described; for they gaze upon the
processes taking place in Saturn with a consciousness that enables
them to transmit pictures of these processes to the Fire Spirits. For
themselves they forgo all the advantage they might have through
witnessing the Saturn events. They renounce every enjoyment it could
afford them, every delight; they give that all up, so that the Fires
Spirits may have it.
These events are followed by a new period in Saturn's existence. To
the play of light another thing is added. It may well seem quite made
to many people when we tell what now confronts supersensible
cognition. Within the Saturn body something like sensations of taste
begin to go surging to and fro. Sweet, bitter, sour, etc. are
perceived at diverse places in the interior of Saturn; while in the
heavenly spaces without, all this gives the impression of sound, a
kind of music. And in these processes, once more, Beings find it
possible to unfold their activity on Saturn. These Beings may be
called the Sons of Twilight, or Sons of Life
(in Christian language they are the Angeloi or Angels.) They begin to
interact with the surging, eddying forces of taste in the interior of
Saturn, and by this means their etheric of life-body develops an
activity that we may designate as a kind of metabolism. They bring
life into the interior of Saturn; processes of nutrition and excretion
begin to take place there. Not that the Beings themselves bring about
these processes directly; the processes arise indirectly, through
their activity. And now this inner life makes it possible for yet
other Beings to enter the heavenly body. Let them be called the
Spirits of the Harmonies (in Christian terminology called
the Cherubim.) These Beings transmit to the Sons of Life a kind of dim
consciousness of man today. It is like the consciousness that belongs
to man in dreamless sleep, which is of such a low degree that in a
manner of speaking it does not come to consciousness at
all; man remains unaware of it. Yet it is there. It differs from
day-consciousness in kind as well as in degree. Our present-day plants
possess this dreamless sleep consciousness. It affords no
perceptions of an outer world in the human sense of the word,
but it regulates the life-processes and brings them into harmony with
those in the outer Universe. At the Saturn stage with which we are
here dealing, the Sons of Life cannot perceive the regulations; but
the Spirits of the Harmonies perceive it. They therefore are the real
regulators.
All this life goes on in what we have described as the
phantoms-of-man. These therefore appear to the spiritual eye as though
they were alive; and yet their life is but a semblance of life. It is
the life of the Sons of Life who as it were make use of these phantoms
in order to live out their own life.
Let us now direct our attention to these phantoms-of-man with their
semblance of life. During the period with which we have been dealing,
they are of ever-changing form. Now they will resemble one shape, now
another. In the further course of evolution the shapes become more
definite, and sometimes even last for a while. This is due to their
being now permeated by the influences of the Spirits who were at work
in the very beginning of Saturn evolution, namely the Spirits of Will
(the Thrones.) As a result, the phantom-of-man appears to be endowed
with the simplest, darkest form of consciousness. We must conceive it
as being yet more dim than that of dreamless sleep. Under present-day
conditions, the minerals possess this consciousness. It brings the
inner nature of the object or being into unison with the physical
external world. On Saturn it is the Spirits of Will who regulate this
unison, with the result that man appears like an impress of the Saturn
life itself. What the Saturn life is on a large scale, man is now at
this stage on a small. And with this the first seed is given of what
is still only in the seedling stage even in the man of today, namely
Spirit-man (Atman.) Inwardly within Saturn this dull
human will manifests itself to the faculty of supersensible perception
by effects which may be compared to smells. Outwardly
out into the heavenly spaces there is a manifestation as
of personality, a personality, however, that is not guided by an inner
I, but regulated from outside like a machine. It is the Spirits
of Will who regulate it.
Surveying the above, we see that form the middle condition onward the
stages of Saturn's evolution could be characterized by comparing their
effects with sense-impressions of the present time. Thus it was
possible to say: Saturn evolution manifests as warmth; afterwards a
play of light is added, then a play of taste and sound, until at
length there appears what reveals itself inwardly to the
interior of Saturn in sensations of smell, and outwardly like a
human I working in a machine-like way. How is it then with the
manifestations of Saturn evolution before the state of warmth is
reached? They cannot be compared with anything whatsoever that is
accessible to outer sensation. The warmth-condition is preceded by one
which man today experiences only in his inner being. When he gives
himself up to ideas which he forms for himself within his soul without
the occasion being thrust upon him by any impression from outside,
then he has within him something which no physical senses can perceive
something which is accessible, as a perception, to higher
spiritual sight alone. The warmth-condition of Saturn is in effect
preceded by manifestations which exist only for one who can perceive
the supersensible. Three such conditions may be named: pure
warmth-of-soul, not outwardly perceptible; purely spiritual light,
which outwardly is darkness; and spiritual being which is complete in
itself. Pure inner warmth accompanies the appearance on Saturn of the
Spirits of Movement, pure spiritual light that of the Spirits of
Wisdom, while pure inward being is connected with the first outpouring
of the Spirits of Will. Thus with the appearance of the Saturn warmth,
our evolution first emerges from an inner life of pure spirituality,
to an existence manifesting outwardly.
One more thing must be added, with which the present consciousness may
find it still more difficult to come to terms. With the
warmth-conditions of Old Saturn there also first emerges what we call
Time. The previous conditions are in fact not temporal at all. They
belong to the realm which, in spiritual science, may be named
Duration. All that is said in this book of conditions in the Realm of
Duration must therefore be understood in this sense. It must be borne
in mind that any expression implying time-relationships is used only
for the sake of comparison and exposition. In human language even
those things which, in a manner of speaking, precede time, can only be
characterized with words in which the time-conception is implicit. We
must remember that though the first, second and third Saturn states
did not take place one after the other in the present-day
sense of the words, we cannot, after all, avoid describing them in
sequence. Moreover, in spite of their duration of simultaneity, they
depend on one another, and the dependence is such as to be comparable
with a succession in time.
With this reference to the earliest evolutionary states of Saturn,
light is also thrown on all further questionings as to the
whence of these conditions. In a purely intellectual way
it is possible, of course, in the case of every given origin, to ask
again after its origin. But in relation to the facts this will
not do. We can easily bring it home to ourselves by a comparison. If
we see ruts in a road we may ask, Whence do they come? We
may receive the answer, From a carriage. Then we can ask
again, Where did the carriage come from, and where was it
going? Here again an answer founded on facts is possible. We can
still go on to ask, Who was in the carriage? What were the
intentions of the person using it? What was he doing? But we
shall at length reach a point where our questioning is brought to a
natural conclusion by the facts themselves. And if we go on asking
questions beyond this point, we are departing from the purpose of the
original question; we only prolong the questioning, as it were,
mechanically. In cases like the one here cited as an illustration, we
can readily see where the facts themselves will put a natural end to
questioning. With the great questions of the Universe it is not so
easy. None the less, if we think it over carefully, we shall recognize
that all questions of Whence must come to an end with the
Saturn conditions we have been describing. For we have here reached a
sphere where the beings and processes are no longer to be accounted
for by reference to that from which they take their origins, but by
what they are in themselves.
The eventual result of Saturn evolution is to be seen in the fact that
the seed of man has grown and developed to a certain point. It has
attained the low, dim state of consciousness which was described
above. We must not imagine that this began to evolve only in the last
stage of Saturn. The Spirits of Will are working throughout all the
conditions, but it is in the last period that the result of their
activity is most apparent to supersensible perception. Altogether, no
hard and fast line can be drawn between the activities of the several
groups of Beings. When it is said: first the Spirits of will are
active, then the Spirits of Wisdom, and so forth it does not
mean that they are active at that stage only. They work throughout the
whole of Saturn evolution; their working is, however, most readily
observed in the times thus indicated, when the several Beings have as
it were their periods of leadership.
The whole of Saturn evolution thus appears as an elaboration, by the
Spirits of Wisdom, Movement, Form, etc. of that which was poured out
in the beginning by the Spirits of Will. The spiritual Beings
themselves undergo evolution in the process. The Spirits of Wisdom,
for example, after having received their life rayed back to them from
Saturn, are at another stage than before. Their own faculties have
advanced to a higher level, and there follows for them something not
unlike what sleep is for the human being. Periods of activity on
Saturn are followed by times when they are living as it were in other
worlds; and then their activity is turned away from Saturn.
Consequently, supersensible perception sees in the Saturn evolution
here described, a rise and fall. The former lasts until the state of
warmth has developed and matured. Then, with the play of light, a
waning process begins. And when through the working of the Spirits of
Will the phantoms-of-man have taken shape and form, the spiritual
Beings have by then all gradually withdrawn. Saturn evolution dies
away into itself, and disappears as such. A kind of interval of rest
begins. The germ or seed of man passes as it were into a state of
dissolution; not that it vanishes entirely rather it is in the
condition of a plant seed which, resting in the Earth, will ripen by
and by into a new plant. So does the seed of man rest in the bosom of
the world, there to await a new awakening. And when the time for its
awakening has come, then the spiritual Beings have on their part
acquired under different conditions the faculties to
work still further upon the seed of man. The Spirits of Wisdom have in
their etheric body attained the power to do more than enjoy the
reflection of Life as on Saturn; they are now able to pour Life
out of themselves, endowing other beings with it. The Spirits of
Movement are now as far advanced as were the Spirits of Wisdom upon
Saturn. Their lowest member upon Saturn was the astral body;
henceforth they have in addition an etheric or life-body of their own.
And the other spiritual Beings too have reached a further stage in
their evolution. Hence in the further evolution of the seed of man
these spiritual Beings can all work in quite another way than they did
upon Saturn.
But now at the end of Saturn evolution the seed of man had, as it
were, dissolved; and in order that the Spirit-beings more
highly evolved as they now are may continue where they left off
before, it must briefly recapitulate the stages it went through on
Saturn. And this is precisely what shows itself to supersensible
perception. Emerging once more from its hidden state, the seed of man
begins to unfold by its own inherent faculty by virtue of the
forces with which it was imbued on Saturn. It comes forth out of the
darkness as a being-of-will, and raises itself to the semblance of
life, of soul-likeness and so forth, until it reaches the
manifestation of machine-like personality which belonged to it at the
close of Saturn evolution.
Footnotes:
-
If one wanted to express more precisely the inner
experience one has in spiritual investigation, one would have to say
not Saturn was surrounded by an atmosphere but when
the supersensible consciousness becomes aware of Saturn, there also
appears before it an atmosphere of Saturn, or other Beings
appear, of such and such kind. To translate this into the
wording this or that is there is assuredly permissible,
for in the last resort the very same change is made in applying the
ordinary usages of speech to what the soul experiences in
sense-perception. This point should nevertheless be borne in mind
throughout the following description. It is indeed implicitly
contained in the context.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
|
The Rudolf Steiner e.Lib is maintained by:
The e.Librarian:
elibrarian@elib.com
|
|
|
|
|