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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Occult Science - An Outline
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Occult Science - An Outline
Man and the Evolution of the World
When the interval of rest is over, what formerly was Sun comes forth
again from the sleep of worlds. That is to say, it becomes
perceptible once more to those powers of spiritual sight which had
formerly been able to observe it but from which it vanished in the
interval of rest. The planetary being emerging now in its new form
shall be designated Moon but we must not confuse it
with that fragment of it which constitutes the present Moon, the
satellite of the Earth. Two things are to be noted, as it re-emerges.
In the first place, the new Saturn, which separated off during Sun, is
now again within the planetary being. During the interval of rest, it
has re-united with the Sun. The whole content of the original Saturn
comes forth again to begin with as a single cosmic entity. Secondly,
the life-bodies of the human beings, that were formed upon Sun, have
been absorbed during the interval of rest by the planet's spiritual
envelope for such, as a sense, it is. Hence at this point of
time the life-bodies do not appear in union with the human physical
bodies; these emerge, to begin with, by themselves. Though bearing in
their nature all that has been achieved in them on Saturn and on the
Sun, they are still without the etheric or life-body. Nor indeed would
they be able to receive it at once, for in the interval of rest the
etheric body itself has undergone an evolution to which they are not
yet adapted. And so now, at the beginning of Moon evolution, another
repetition of the Saturn events takes place, in order to achieve this
adaptation.
The physical life of man passes in recapitulation through the stages
of Saturn evolution, but under altogether changed conditions. For on
Saturn the forces of a warmth body alone were at work in it, whereas
now there are also those of the gaseous body which it has assimilated.
The latter do not however emerge at once. In the beginning of Moon
evolution it is as though the human being consisted of
warmth-substance alone, with the gaseous forces still asleep within
it. Then follows a period when these emerge in their first indication.
And at length, in the last period of the Saturn repetition, the human
being has already the appearance he had when he was alive on Sun. Yet
all life at this stage proves to be no more than a mere
semblance of life. For there must first be an interval of rest, like
the short intervals of rest during Sun evolution. Then begins once
more the inpouring of the life-body, for which the physical body has
now made itself mature. This inpouring takes place, as did the Saturn
repetition, in three distinct epochs. In the second of these, the
human being is so far adapted to the new Moon conditions that the
Spirits of Movement can bring into action the faculty they have
acquired. Out of their own nature they can now pour the astral body
into the human beings. For this work they prepared themselves during
Sun evolutions, and in the interval of rest between Sun and Moon they
have transmuted what they had prepared into the actual faculty. This
inpouring of the astral body lasts for a certain time, and then again
one of the smaller intervals of rest ensues; after which the inpouring
is continued, until the Spirits of Form enter with their activity.
Through the Spirits of Movement pouring into him the astral body, the
human being acquires his first qualities of soul. The processes that
take place in him by virtue of the life-body which in Sun
evolution were still of a plant-like character these he now
begins to follow with sensation, feeling pleasure in them or disliking
them. But the sympathies and antipathies thus aroused remain in
ever-changing ebb and flow, until the Spirits of Form come in and play
their part. Thereupon the ever-changing feelings become so transformed
that there emerges in the human being what we may regard as a first
sign of wish and craving. He strives for a repetition of what gave
enjoyment, and seeks to avoid what roused a feeling of antipathy.
Since however the Spirits of Form do not communicate their own nature
to the human being but only cause their forces to pour in and out of
him, this craving is without inwardness or independence. It is guided
by the Spirits of Form, and gives the impression of being purely
instinctive.
On Saturn the physical body of the human being was a body of warmth;
on Sun there was a condensation to the gaseous condition, to
air. Now, in Moon evolution, when the Astral is poured in,
the moment is reached when the physical attains a further stage of
condensation. It comes into a condition comparable to that of a liquid
in our time. This new state may be designated water,
meaning however not our present water but any liquid form of
existence. The human physical body comes now gradually to assume a
form composed of three organic structures, distinct from one another
in their substance. The densest is a water body; this is
permeated through and through by airy currents, and warmth effects
continue also to pervade the whole.
But now, as on Saturn, so in the Sun stage too, not all the forms
attain the corresponding maturity. Hence we find upon Moon, forms
which are even now still at the Saturn stage, and some also which have
reached but remain at the stage of Sun. Two other kingdoms thus
emerge, beside the properly developed human kingdom. One consists of
beings which, having remained at the Saturn stage, have physical body
alone; and this physical body is not yet able, even now on Moon, to
become the bearer of an independent life-body. These beings form the
lowest kingdom. A second kingdom is composed of beings who have
stopped short at the Sun stage, and are accordingly not ready on Moon
to incorporate within them an independent astral body. They constitute
an intermediate kingdom, between the aforesaid and the normally
advanced human kingdom.
A further event has now to be noted. The substances with forces of
warmth alone, those also that have stopped short as forces of air,
permeate the human beings too. These, therefore, on Moon, bear within
them a Saturn and a Sun nature. Thereby a kind of split has come about
in human nature, and in consequence of this, an event of great
significance takes place in Moon evolution. Soon after the Spirits of
Form have come in with their activity, a severance begins to be
prepared for in the heavenly body of the Moon. A portion of the
substances and beings is split off from the remainder. Out of the
single heavenly body, two separate ones evolve. The first is taken for
their dwelling-place by certain higher Beings, hitherto more
intimately united with the heavenly body in its single state. The
second is occupied by man, together with the two lower kingdoms
above-mentioned and also certain higher Beings who do not pass over to
the first. The former heavenly body, with the higher Beings, appears
now as a Sun re-born and at the same time refined; the latter is
henceforth the essentially new creation Old Moon,
as it has to be called the third planetary embodiment of our
Earth, following on the Saturn and Sun embodiments.
Of the substances that have come into existence on Moon, the new-born
Sun, as it goes forth, takes with it only warmth and air; while on the
remained which is left behind as Moon, beside these two the watery
state is also to be found. In consequence of the severance, the Beings
who have gone forth with the new-born Sun are no longer hampered in
their evolution by the denser beings of the Moon. They are now able to
progress untrammeled in their own becoming, and they attain thereby
the greater strength to work now from without, from their
dwelling-place, the Sun upon the beings of the Moon. Thus do
the Moon beings too attain new possibilities of evolution. What is for
them particularly significant is that the Spirits of Form have
remained united with them. These establish more firmly the
desire-nature of the human being, and by degrees this comes to find
expression in a further condensation of the physical body. Where
hitherto it has been but watery, it begins to assume a more viscous
form, and the structures of air and of warmth are densified to
correspond. Similar changes take place also in the two lower kingdoms.
In consequence of having separated from the Sun, the Moon is now
related to the Sun in the same way as once was Saturn to the whole of
the surrounding cosmic evolution. Saturn was formed out of the body of
the Spirits of Will (Thrones.) From the Saturn substance rayed back
into cosmic space all that was experienced in consciousness by the
Spirit-beings in its environment. And through the events that
followed, this raying-back gradually work to independent life. Such is
the essence of all evolution. Independent being is first separated out
from the life of the environment, then the environment engraves itself
as it were, by reflection upon the separated being, and
then the latter evolves further, independently.
So did the Moon body sever itself from the Sun, and, to being with,
simply reflect the life of the Sun body. If, therefore, nothing else
had happened, the situation in the cosmos would have been as follows.
There would have been a Sun body, where spiritual Beings well adapted
to its nature had their experiences in the elements of warmth and air.
Over against it would have been a Lunar body, wherein other Beings
were evolving, living a life of warmth and air and water. And the
progress from the Sun to the Moon embodiment would have meant for the
Sun Beings that in what was happening on Moon they would have beheld
their own life as in a mirror, and would in this way have been able to
receive it and enjoy it, which during the Sun embodiment had not yet
been possible. But evolution took another turn. Something took place
which was of the very deepest significance for all succeeding
evolution. Certain beings, who were adapted to the Moon body,
possessed themselves of the element of Will (a heritage from the
Thrones) which stood at their disposal, and evolved therewith a life
of their own, that grew up independently of the Sun life.
Alongside the experiences on Moon which were entirely subject to the
Sun's influence, independent experiences now arose states of
rebellion, as it were, or of opposition to the Sun Beings. And the
various kingdoms that had arisen on Sun and Moon above all, the
kingdom of the forefather of man became involved in these new
conditions. Spiritually and materially, the Moon body contained now
within it two kinds of life one that was in intimate union with
the Sun's life, and another which, having fallen from
this, went on its own independent way. This division into a twofold
life comes to expression in all the succeeding events of the Moon
embodiment.
That which presents itself to supersensible consciousness at this
epoch in evolution, can be described in the following picture. The
ground mass of the Moon was formed of a semi-live substance, which was
in constant movement, sometimes sluggish, sometimes quick and lively.
There is as yet no solid mineral mass like the rocks and other
constituents of the Earth on which man treads today. We might describe
it as a kind of plant-mineral kingdom. Only, we have to imagine the
whole ground and body of the Moon consisting of this plant-mineral
substance, just as the earth today consists of rocks and stones,
arable soil, etc. As here and there rocks protrude from the Earth
today, so in the Lunar mass, harder portions also were embedded. These
might be likened to forms made of hard wood or horn. Moreover, as
plants today spring from the mineral soil, so was the ground of the
Moon bedecked, and also penetrates, by a second kingdom, consisting of
a kind of plant-animal. The substance of this kingdom was softer than
the ground and more mobile in itself. It spread over the lower kingdom
like a turgid sea. And as for man himself, he might be described as
animal-man. He had in his nature the constituents of the two other
kingdoms; but his being was permeated through and through by a
life-body and an astral body, upon which the forces of the higher
Beings on the Sun were working, thereby ennobling his form and figure.
The Spirits of form gave him a form and figure that adapted him to the
Moon life; the Sun Spirits, on the other hand, made him a being that
was lifted beyond this life. With the faculties bestowed on him by
these Spirits, man had the power to ennoble his own nature; he could
even lift up on to a higher level that within him which was akin to
the lower kingdoms.
Seen in their spiritual aspect, these developments may be described as
follows. Man's ancestor had also been ennobled by beings who had
fallen away from the Sun kingdom. Their ennobling influence extended,
above all, to everything that could be experienced in the watery
element. Upon this element, the influence of the Beings of the Sun was
not so great; they were rulers in the elements of warmth and air. The
outcome of all this was that a twofold nature began to declare itself
in man's organism. One part of it was permeated through and through by
the influence of the Sun Beings; while in the other, the fallen
beings, the Moon beings, were working. The latter part was thus more
independent. In the former, no other states of consciousness could
arise than those in which the Beings of the Sun were living, while in
the latter there lived a kind of cosmic consciousness, such as had
belonged to the Saturn state, but on a higher level. Through it man's
ancestor saw himself as an Image of the Universe, while in
the Sun part of his being he would feel himself only as an
Image of the Sun.
These two natures in man began now to come into a kind of conflict.
And for this conflict a balance was established by the influence of
the Sun Beings making transient and frail the more material part of
man's organism whereby he was enabled to have the independent
World-consciousness. Henceforth this part had to be thrown off from
time to time. During the process and for some while after, man's
ancestor was a being subject to the Sun influence alone. His
consciousness became less independent; he lived in utter devotion to
the Solar life. Thereupon the independent Moon part
would be renewed once more; and after a while the whole process be
repeated. This happened time and again. Thus did the ancestor of man
live on the Moon in alternating states of consciousness now
duller, now clearer; and the alternation was accompanied by a changing
and renewal of his being in its material aspect. From time to time he
would lay aside his Moon body, then after awhile put it on once more.
Seen in their physical aspect, the aforesaid kingdoms of the Moon show
great variety. The mineral-plants differ from one another, group by
group; so do the plant-animals and the animal-men. This we shall
readily understand if we recall that certain structures have remained
behind at each of the preceding stages. Forms very varied in quality
will thus had been embodied. Some there are which still reveal the
initial properties of Saturn; others, those of its middle epoch;
others again, those of its end. So too for all the successive
evolutionary stages of the Sun.
Nor is it only the forms and structures belonging to the heavenly body
that remain behind as it goes forward in its evolution. The same
applies to many of the Beings connected with it. With the advance of
evolution to Moon, a number of different ranks of such Beings are to
be found. There are Spirits of Personality who even on Sun did not
attain their human level, while there are others who made good there
what they and missed before, and rose to the human stage. The same
with the Fires Spirits who should have become human beings on Sun: a
number of these have also remained behind. And as in Sun evolution
certain Spirits of Personality, having remained behind, withdrew from
the Sun and made Saturn arise anew as a distinct heavenly body, so too
in the course of Moon evolution do the Beings aforesaid remove
themselves on to separate heavenly bodies. So far, we have spoken only
of the separation into Sun and Moon, but in the same manner other
heavenly forms were also separated from the Moon body which emerged
after the great interval between the Sun and Moon stages of evolution;
so that we have in time a whole system of heavenly bodies, the most
advanced of which, as will readily be seen, must be the new Sun. And
now, as in Sun evolution there was a bond of attraction between the
backward Saturn kingdom and the Spirits of Personality on the new
Saturn, so, in like manner, bonds of attraction now arise between the
several heavenly bodies and the corresponding Moon beings. It would
lead us much too far afield to trace here in detail all the heavenly
bodies that emerged. Let is suffice to have pointed out the reason
why, as time went on, from the single heavenly body which arose as
Saturn in the beginning of human evolution, a whole number of heavenly
bodies detached themselves one after another.
After the Spirits of Form have come in with their activity, Moon
evolution continues for a time along these lines. Then there is once
more an interval, during which the coarser parts of the three Moon
kingdoms remain in a kind of quiescent state, while the finer parts
and notably the astral bodies of the human beings free
themselves from these coarser structures. They come into a condition
where the higher forces of the sublime Beings of the Sun can work upon
them with peculiar intensity.
After this interval of rest, the finer portions penetrate once more
into the parts of the human being that are of coarser substance. What
with the strength they have acquired in their free condition during
the interval, they can now make these coarser substances ready to
receive the influence which, after a time, the normally progressive
Spirits of Personality and the Fire Spirits will bring to bear on
them.
The Spirits of Personality have risen meanwhile to a stage at which
they have the consciousness of Inspiration. Not only can they, as in
their former picture-consciousness, perceive in picture form the inner
states of other beings; they can behold their very inwardness,
expressed in a language as it were of spiritual music. Meanwhile the
Fire Spirits have risen to the consciousness which the Spirits of
Personality possessed on Sun. Both kinds of Spirits are thus able to
enter, and play their part in, the now more ripened life of the human
being. The Spirits of Personality work on his astral body, the Fire
Spirits on his etheric body. The astral body receives thereby the
character of personality. Henceforth it not only experiences pleasure
and pain, it also relates them to itself. Not yet does it rise to the
full consciousness of I which says to itself I
am; Rather does it feel sustained and sheltered by other beings
in its environment. Turning its gaze upward, as it were, to these, it
can exclaim: This my environment upholds me in existence.
Meanwhile the Fire Spirits work upon the etheric body. Under their
influence the motion of the forces in this body becomes gradually more
and more of an inward life activity. It finds physical expression in a
movement of the saps and fluids and in phenomena of growth. The
gaseous substances have been condensed to watery, and we may now begin
to speak of a kind of nutrition in the sense that what is
received from without is inwardly transmuted and assimilated. If we
imagine something intermediate between the nutrition and the breathing
of today, we shall have a fair idea of what was taking place in this
direction. The human being derived his food-stuffs from
the animal-plant kingdom. These animal-plants we must imagine hovering
and floating in a surrounding element (or sometimes also loosely
rooted in the ground,) rather as the lower animals of today live in
the water, or the terrestrial animals in the air. But the element in
which the animal-plants lived was neither water nor air in the present
sense; it was something intermediate between the two a kind of
dense vapor wherein the most diverse substances, being as it were
dissolved in it, moved hither and thither in manifold currents. The
animal-plants seemed like forms within this element that were only
rather more regular and condensed. Physically they were often but
little different from their surrounding element. Besides the process
of nutrition, there was also a breathing process. But it was not as it
is on Earth; it was more like an in-drawing and out-pouring of warmth.
To the supersensible observer of these processes, it is as though
organs were opening out and drawing to again, while a warmth-giving
stream pours in and out of them, and air and water substances are
conveyed inwards and outwards. And since the human being has already
at this stage an astral body of his own, both breathing and nutrition
are accompanied by inner feelings. A kind of pleasure is experienced
when substances that are helpful for building the human being, are
absorbed; discomfort is felt when harmful substances flow in, or even
when they only come too near.
Now as the breathing process was during Moon evolution nearly related
to that of nutrition, so was the process of ideation the
forming of mental images to the reproduction process. The
things and begins in Moon man's environment exercised no immediate
effect on any human senses. Man's mental life was rather of the
following character. In this dim twilight consciousness, pictures were
called up by the presence of these things and begins; and the pictures
were far more intimately related to the real inner nature of the
environment than are our sense-perceptions, which reveal in
colors, sounds, smells, etc. merely its outer aspect. To gain a
better idea of Moon man's consciousness we should imagine him steeped
in the vapor-like environment above described. Manifold processes are
taking place within it. Substances are combining, substances are
separating; some parts grow more condensed, others thin out, become
more tenuous. All this goes on in such a way that though the human
beings do not directly see or hear it, it calls forth pictures in
their consciousness. These may be likened to the pictures of our
dream-consciousness today. Let us say, an object falls to the floor.
The sleeper does not perceive the real process, but instead some
arbitrary picture for example, he thinks a shot is being fired.
The pictures of Moon consciousness, however, unlike our
dream-pictures, are not arbitrary. Though they are not copies but
symbols only of outer processes, nevertheless they correspond to them.
For a particular outer process one picture will arise and no other.
Moon man is thus in a position to order his conduct according to the
pictures, just as today man orders his conduct according to his
perceptions. Only, observe the difference; conduct based on our
perceptions is subject to free choice whereas action under the
influence of these pictures takes place as though impelled by a deep
inner urge.
We must not however imagine that in this picture-consciousness we have
no more than a symbolization of outer physical processes. Through the
pictures, the spiritual Beings holding sway behind the physical facts
these spiritual Beings and their activities are also presented
to consciousness. Thus in the creatures of the animal-like kingdom the
Spirits of Personality are as it were made visible, while the Fires
Spirits appear behind and within the mineral-plant beings. Other
beings too appear, whom man can conceive without connection with
anything physical; he beholds them rather as ethereal and soul-like
forces. These are the Sons of Life.
The mental pictures of Moon consciousness being not copies but symbols
of the outer beings, their influence on the inner life of the human
being was on this very account all the greater; it was far greater
than that of the mental pictures man has today, that are communicated
by external perception. The pictures of Moon consciousness were
capable of arousing his whole inner life to movement and action. The
inner processes took shape to accord with them, they were formative
forces in the true sense of the word. The human being became even as
they formed him. He became, so to speak, the image of his own
processes in consciousness.
But now the farther evolution goes on in this way, the more does it
entail a deeply incisive change for the human being. The power
proceeding from the pictures in consciousness grows gradually less and
less to extend over his whole bodily nature. Some members are subject
in their formation to the formative plastic influences of the
picture-consciousness, and become to a large extent an image of the
mental life in the way that has been indicated; but there are other
organs that withdraw themselves from this influence. In part of his
being, man is as it were too dense determined too much by other
laws for him to follow the pictures he has in his
consciousness. These organs withdraw from his influence. But they come
under another; they come under the influence of the sublime Sun Beings
themselves. This stage in evolution is however seen to be preceded by
an interval of rest, wherein the Sun Spirits gather up their forces,
in order to work upon the beings of the Moon under these quite new
conditions.
After the interval of rest, the human being is seen to be divided into
two natures. One is withdrawn from the independent working of his
picture-consciousness. It takes on a more definite shape and comes
under the influence of forces which, though they proceed from the body
of the Moon, can only arise there through the influence of the Sun
Beings. This portion of man's being partakes increasingly in the life
that is kindled by the Sun. The other rises out of this one, like a
kind of head. It is mobile and pliable, shaping itself so as to
express and sustain the dream-like consciousness in which man lives.
The two portions are however intimately bound up with one another.
They send each other their respective fluids, and the members of each
extend into the other.
While all this has been taking place, a relationship of Sun and Moon
has arisen, which accords with the trend of this evolution. A
significant harmony is thereby brought about.
It has already been shown how the spiritual Beings, as they go forward
through the stages of their evolution, detach from the great cosmic
mass various heavenly bodies, to be their dwelling-places. It is the
Beings who radiate the forces by which the cosmic substances are
organized and differentiated. The separation of Sun and Moon was thus
a necessary event, to lead up to the provision of proper
dwelling-places for the several spiritual Beings. But this
determination of substance and of its forces by the Spirit goes still
farther. For it is the spiritual Beings who give rise to certain
movements of the heavenly bodies, revolutions one about another, with
the result that the heavenly bodies change their relative positions;
and every change in their relative position of one heavenly body to
another means a change in the mutual influences of the Beings.
This is what happened with regard to Sun and Moon. A movement of the
Moon about the Sun is induced, which at certain times brings the human
begins more into the sphere of the Sun's influence, while at other,
alternative times they are enabled to turn away from it and so be
thrown more upon their own resources. The movement is an outcome of
the above-mentioned fall of certain beings of the Moon,
and of the balance established in settlement of the conflict which
ensued. It is simply the physical expression for the spiritual
relationship of forces that was engendered by the fall.
Through the one heavenly body moving around the other, there arise in
the Beings who inhabit them such alternative states of consciousness
as were described above. It can indeed be said that the Moon
alternatively turns her life towards the Sun and away from it. There
is a sun time and a planetary time. During the latter the Moon Beings
grow and evolve on a side of the Moon which is turned away from the
Sun. It must however be added that something else comes into play on
the Moon, beside this motion of the heavenly bodies. Supersensible
consciousness, as it looks back, can see the Moon Beings themselves
migrating round their planet at regular intervals of time. Sometimes
they seek the regions where they can give themselves up to the Sun's
influence, at other times they journey to regions where they are not
subject to it where they can, as it were, muse upon their own
life and being.
To complete the picture, it is moreover to be observed that in this
epoch the Sons of Life attain their human stage. We have seen how the
first beginnings of the human senses came into being upon Saturn. Even
now on Moon, man cannot yet use these senses for his own perception
of external objects; at this stage, however, they can become
instruments for the Sons of Life. The Sons of Life use them in order
through them to have perception. Thus these senses, that belong to the
physical body of man, enter into mutual relation with the Sons of
Life. For the Sons of Life do not merely make use of them; they also
work upon them and perfect them.
Through these alternating relations to the Sun, recurring changes
arise, as we have seen, in the life-conditions of man himself. It
happens in the following way. Each time that he is subjected to the
influence of the Sun, man devotes himself to the Sun life and its
manifestations rather than to himself. At such times he feels the
greatness and majesty of the Universe as expressed in the shining of
the Sun. He inhales, at it were, sublime and cosmic greatness. It is
then that the lofty Beings, who have their dwelling on the Sun, are
exerting their influence upon the Moon. And the Moon, in turn, is
working not upon the whole human being, but chiefly upon those
parts of him which have withdrawn from the influence of the pictures
he has in his consciousness. The physical body and the life-body
especially attain at these times a certain magnitude and a certain
perfection of form. In the manifestations of consciousness, on the
other hand, there is a decline. But when the life of the human being
is turned away from the Sun, he occupies himself more with his own
nature. Then inner life and mobility begin in the astral body, while
the outer figure grows less comely, less perfect in formation.
There are therefore during Moon evolution two alternating states of
consciousness, quite distinct from one another. The one during the Sun
period is more dim; the other in the epoch when life is thrown
more on its won resources is clearer. The former condition,
while it is dimmer, is at the same time more selfless, for man then
lives more in devotion to the outer world to the Universe as
reflected in the Sun This alternation in states of consciousness may
be compared, in the man of the present day, both to the alternation of
sleeping and waking, and also to that of life between birth and death
on the one hand and, on the other, the more spiritual existence
between death and a new birth. Man's awakening on Moon, when the Sun
time draws to a close, might thus be described as something
intermediate between the awakening of present-day man each morning,
and his birth. So too the gradual dimming of consciousness as the Sun
time approaches is like an intermediate state between our dying and
our falling asleep; for it must not be supposed that an Old Moon there
was yet a consciousness of birth and death such as man has today. In
the Sun time the human being abandoned himself to the enjoyment of a
kind of Sun-life. He was lifted away form his own life and lived more
spiritually. We can do no more than attempt an approximate and
comparative description of what he then experienced. He felt as if the
very forces of the Universe, as if all their influences were streaming
in upon him, throbbing through his being. He felt intoxicated by the
cosmic harmonies in which his life participated. At such times his
astral body was in a way freed from the physical, and with it part of
the life-body too was drawn away; and this entity of astral body and
life-body was like a delicate and wonderful musical instrument, upon
the chords of which the cosmic Mysteries resounded. And the members of
that part of man on which his consciousness had little influence were
then shaped and molded in accordance with the harmonies of the
Universe. For in these harmonies the Beings of the Sun were working.
This part of man was thus in very truth shaped and formed by the tones
of spiritual, cosmic sounds.
The transition from the brighter state of consciousness to the duller
one was not so marked as in the transition from the waking condition
to the dreamless sleep of man today. The picture-consciousness was
not, indeed, as bright as waking consciousness today, neither was the
other state of consciousness as dull as our dreamless sleep. Man had a
certain apprehension, though a dim one, of the playing of the cosmic
harmonies in his physical body and in that part of his etheric body
which had remained united with the physical. And when the Sun was, as
it were, no longer shining for him, the mental pictures came into his
consciousness in place of the cosmic harmonies. Life was then kindled
more in those members of the physical and etheric bodies which were
subject to the direct influence of his own consciousness, while the
other parts of man the formative, creative forces no longer
working on them from the Sun went through a kind of withering
and hardening process. And as the Sun time drew near once more, the
old bodies fell away. They detached themselves from the human being,
and out of his old bodily nature, as though out of a grave, man came
forth once more new-formed within, though crude as yet in outer
shape and stature. The life-process in him had undergone renewal.
After this, the new-born body under the influence of the Sun
Beings with their cosmic harmonies grew and unfolded to its
perfect state once more, and then the whole process was repeated.
Man felt this renewal like the putting-on of a fresh garment. He had
not, with the kernel of his being, gone through an actual birth or
death. He had but passed from a spiritual consciousness of cosmic
Sound when he was in a state of devotion to the outer Universe
to a consciousness that was directed upon his own inner being.
He had cast his skin. The old body having grown unfit for use had been
laid aside and renewed.
Herewith we have also indicated more precisely what was characterized
above as a kind of reproduction that was closely related to the life
of ideation the forming of mental images. In respect of certain
parts of the physical and etheric body it is true to say that the
human being brought forth his kind. But this does not mean that we
have then a daughter-being fully distinct from the parent-being. The
kernel of the latter passes over to the former, thus bringing forth
not a new being but itself in a new shape. When the Sun
time draws near, his mental pictures grow fainter and fainter, a sense
of blissful devotion fills him, and in the peace and silence of his
inner being the universal harmonies resound. Towards the end of this
period the pictures in the astral body become alive again; man begins
to be increasingly aware of himself. He feels as though he were
awakening form the blissful rest in which he has been immersed during
the Sun time. Another significant experience meets him here. With the
renewed lighting-up of the pictures in consciousness, the human being
sees himself enshrouded as it were within a cloud, which has descended
on him like a Being from the great Universe. This Being, he feels,
belongs to him, is a kind of completion of his own nature. He it is,
he feels, that grants him his existence, that grants him his I. The
Being is one of the Sons of Life. Man's feeling towards him can be
expressed somewhat as follows In him I lived, even in the
Sun time when I was given up to the sublime glory of the Universal
All. Only, then he was not visible to me; now he is becoming
visible. And it is this Son of Life from whom the force proceeds
that enables man to work upon his own bodily nature during the
Sun-less time. Then, when the Sun time draws near once more, man feels
as though he himself were becoming one with the Sun of Life. Even then
he does not see him, but he feels deeply and inwardly united with him.
The relation of the human beings to the Sons of Life was not such that
each single human being had his Son of Life to himself, but a whole
group would feel that a Son of Life belonged to it as a group. Men
lived, on Moon, separated in this way into groups, and each group felt
in common group-Ego in a Son of Life. The different
between the groups made itself felt notably in the etheric body, which
had a special form in each group. Since however the physical body
takes its form from the etheric, the differences in the latter were
impressed upon the former, and the several groups may be regarded as
so many human species. When the Sons of Life looked down upon the
human groups belonging to them, they saw themselves manifolded, as it
were, in so many single human beings. And that gave them the feeling
of their own Ego-hood. They saw the reflection of themselves in the
human beings. Herein too lay the function of the human senses at that
time. We have already seen that the senses did not yet transmit any
perceptions of external objects, but at this stage they reflected the
being of the Sons of Life. What the Sons of Life perceived through
this reflection, gave them their I consciousness. And what
was kindled in man's astral body by the same reflection was
none other than the picture-content of his dim Moon consciousness. The
effect of this activity of man in mutual interaction with the Sons of
Life finds expression in the physical body in the beginnings of the
nervous system. The nerves make their appearance there like
prolongations of the senses into the inward parts of the body.
From all this a clear picture emerges of how the three kinds of
Spirits the Spirits of Personality, the Fire Spirits and the
Sons of Life worked upon Moon man. Fixing our attention on the
main period the middle epoch of Moon evolution, we may
say: The Spirits of Personality implant independence, the character of
personality, in the human astral body. It is due to this that man is
able, in the times when so to speak the Sun is not
shining for him, to turn in upon himself and labor at his own
formation. The Fires Spirits are at work in the etheric body, in so
far as the same independent character becomes impressed upon it too.
It is owing to their influence that after each renewal of this body
man feels himself still the same being. This is because the etheric
body is endowed by them with a kind of memory. The Sons of Life work
on the physical body. They make it possible for the physical body to
become an expression of the new independent astral body to
become, as it were, a physiognomical image of it. On the other hand,
higher spiritual Beings are also working into the physical and etheric
bodies in so far as in the Sun periods these bodies grow and develop
apart from the independent astral body. This applied especially to the
Spirits of Form and the Spirits of Movement. Their intervention takes
place form the Sun, as has been described.
Amid all these various influences, the human being matures to the
point where he begins to develop within him the seed of Spirit-Self,
just as the seed of Spirit-Man arose in the second half of Saturn
evolution and the seed of Life-Spirit on Sun. And now all the
conditions on Moon undergo change. Through the successive
metamorphoses and renewals the human beings have been growing every
nobler, purer and finer in their nature; at the same time they have
also gained in strength. Hence they are able increasingly to preserve
the picture-consciousness even on into the Sun periods, with the
result that this consciousness gains influence on the formation of the
physical and the etheric bodies, which formerly was effected through
the working of the Sun Beings alone. All that happens upon Moon
through the agency of the human beings and the Spirits connected with
them, comes more and more to resemble what was formerly brought about
by the Sun and the higher Beings that belong to it. In consequence of
this, the Sun Beings are able to apply their forces more and more to
their own evolution. The Moon too grew ready after a time to be united
again with the Sun.
Spiritually regarded, these processes reveal themselves as follows.
Little by little, the fallen Moon Beings have been
overcome by the Sun Beings and must henceforth come into line with
them. The deeds of the Moon Beings must become part and parcel of the
deeds of the Sun Beings, to whom they are now subordinate. This change
requires long epochs of time, during which the Moon periods grow ever
shorter and shorter and the Sun periods longer and longer. And then
there comes once more a period of evolution during which Sun and Moon
form a single cosmic entity. The physical human body has now become
entirely ethereal. When this is said, it must not however be imagined
that under such conditions there is no physical body. That which has
been evolved as physical body during the times of Saturn, Sun and
Moon, remains as such. The fact is, we must not limit our recognition
of the physical to where it manifests in an outwardly physical form.
The physical can also exist in such a way as to present outwardly the
form of the etheric, nay even of the astral. We must distinguish here
between outward appearance and inner law and principle. A physical can
become ethereal and astral, while still retaining the physical laws in
its inner nature. And this is what happens when on the Moon the
physical body of man has reached a certain stage in its perfection. It
becomes ethereal in form. But when the supersensible consciousness
that can perceive such things, turns its attention to this body, then,
although ethereal in form, it shows itself to be imbued with the laws,
not of the etheric but of the physical. In effect, the physical has
then been received into the etheric, to rest in it as in a mother's
womb and to be nurtured there. Afterwards it will emerge in a physical
form once more, but on a higher level. If the human beings of Moon had
had to maintain their physical bodies in gross physical form, the Moon
could never have been reunited with the Sun. By assuming etheric form,
the physical body becomes more akin to the etheric body, and is thus
able to be imbued again more intimately with those portions of the
etheric and astral bodies which had to be withdrawn from it in the
Sun-time epochs of Moon evolution. Man, having appeared like a twofold
being during the severance of Sun and Moon, now grows once more into a
single whole. The physical takes on more of the quality of soul; and
the soul-life is at the same time more bound up with the physical.
Upon this human being, single and coherent, the Spirits of the Sun
into whose realm he has now entered can work quite differently than
they could before, when they were sending their influences tot he Moon
from without. Man is now living in an environment that is more of the
soul and spirit. This enables the Spirits of Wisdom to come in with an
activity of deep significance. They imbue man with Wisdom
ensoul him with Wisdom. Thereby he becomes in a sense an independent
soul. Then to their influence is added that of the Spirits of
Movement, who work above all upon the astral body. Under the influence
of these high Beings, the astral body develops within it quickness of
soul and a Wisdom-filled life-body. This Wisdom-filled etheric body is
the germ of what was described in an earlier chapter in respect
of the man at present time as intellectual soul, while the
astral body, animated as it now is by the Spirits of Movement, is the
seed and beginning of the sentient soul. And since all this is brought
about in the human being at a time when his independence is enhanced,
these beginnings of intellectual soul and sentient soul appear as the
expression of the Spirit-Self. We must not make the mistake of
imagining the Spirit-Self to be, in this period of evolution, a
separate entity beside the intellectual and the sentient souls. The
latter are only the expression of the Spirit-Self, which in its turn
signifies their higher union and harmony.
The intervention of the Spirits of Wisdom in this epoch is of peculiar
significance. For they intervene not only for the human beings but for
the other kingdoms too, which have developed upon Moon. When Sun and
Moon are joined again, these lower kingdoms are also drawn into the
realm of the Sun. All that was physical in them is etherealised. So
now there are in the Sun not only human beings, but also
mineral-plants and plant-animals. These other beings still maintain
however their own nature, their own laws of being. Consequently they
feel themselves strangers in their new surroundings. For they emerge
there with a nature which is scarcely in accord with their
environment. Since, however, they are etherealised, they too are
accessible to the influence of the Spirits of Wisdom. Indeed, all that
has come over from Moon into Sun is now permeated with the forces of
these Spirits. That which the Sun-Moon entity has become during this
time in evolution may accordingly be called Cosmos of
Wisdom.
When after an interval of rest the system of our Earth emerges as the
successor to this Cosmos of Wisdom, and the created beings that have
come over from Moon as seeds come alive again on Earth, then all these
beings reveal themselves as filled and permeated with Wisdom. And now
we see how it is that Earth man, as he contemplates the things around
him, is able to discover Wisdom in their very nature. We can admire
the Wisdom in every leaf, in every bone of animal or man, or again in
the marvelous construction of the brain and the heart. If man needs
Wisdom to understand the things if, that is, he can examine
them and draw forth Wisdom from them it proves that Wisdom is
inherent in them. Try as he will to understand the things of the Earth
with Wisdom-filled ideas, man could extract no Wisdom from them if
Wisdom had not first been implanted in them. Anyone who would presume
to grasp by Wisdom things of which he thinks that they have not first
received that Wisdom, may just as well suppose that he can draw water
form a glass into which water has not first been poured. Earth
as will be shown later is Old Moon reborn. And it manifests as
a creation filled with Wisdom, because in the epoch here described the
Spirits of Wisdom imbued it with their forces.
It will readily be understood that in the above account of Moon
conditions it has only been possible to depict a few transient forms
of this whole stage of evolution. Out of the whole course of events we
have had to lay hold, as it were, on certain elements, singling them
out for description. One might feel dissatisfied with a method of
exposition that can give no more than isolated pictures, and regret
that Moon evolution had not been brought into a nexus of well defined
concepts. If objection is taken on this ground, all one can say is
that these descriptions have purposely been given in concepts less
sharp and definite. For the intention here is not so much to provide
speculative concepts and built-up scheme of thought, but a mental
picture of what can actually appear before the spiritual eye when
supersensible vision is directed to the facts. And for Moon evolution
this has far less of sharp and clear-cut outline than have our
perceptions on Earth. In the Moon epoch we have to do much more with
changing, varying impressions, with fleeting, mobile pictures and
their transitions from one to another. It must moreover be borne in
mind that we are considering an evolution that continues through long,
long ages, and in any description of it we can after all do no more
than hold fast momentary pictures here and there.
The culminating point of the Moon epoch is reached at the moment when
the human being, through the astral body which has been implanted in
him, has advanced so far in evolution that his physical body gives to
the Sons of Life the means to attain their human stage. For at this
point the human being has also attained all that the Moon epoch can
give him for himself, for his own inner begin, on his forward path.
The ensuing time the second half of Moon evolution may
therefore be described as a waning period. Yet in this time, as we
have seen, something of great importance is nevertheless achieved,
both for man's environment and also for man himself. Wisdom is
implanted into the heavenly body of Sun-Moon. Moreover it is in this
declining period that the seeds are sown of the intellectual and the
sentient souls. Their unfoldment, however, and that of the spiritual
soul and withal, the birth of the I in free
self-consciousness does not take place until the Earth. At the
Moon stage the intellectual and sentient souls do not by any means
appear as though the human being were already expressing himself
through them; rather do they seem like instruments for the Sons of
Life who are associated with Man's being. If one wanted to describe
how man felt in this respect on Old Moon, one would have to express
his consciousness in some such words as these In me and
through me lives the Son of Life. Through me he beholds the Lunar
environment, the Moon; in me he thinks upon the things and beings that
Moon contains. Moon man, in fact, feels himself overshadowed by
the Son of Life. He feels himself as the tool or instrument of this
higher Being. During the severance of Sun and Moon, in the times when
he is turned away from the Sun, he feels, it is true, more
independent; he also feels as thought the I belonging to him
which in the Sun times vanished from his picture-consciousness
for so we may describe it gives the human being on Moon
the feeling: In the Sun time my Ego soars away with me to higher
realms, to Beings lofty and sublime; then it descends with me, when
the Sun vanishes, into deeper worlds.
Moon evolution proper was preceded by a preparatory stage; a kind of
repetition of Saturn and Sun evolutions took place. And now, in this
declining period, after the reunion of Sun and Moon, we can similarly
distinguish two epochs, during which there were to some extent even
physical condensations. So do physical soul-spirited conditions of the
Sun-Moon body alternate with one another. In the physical epochs the
human being, and also the beings of the lower kingdoms, appear as
though foreshadowing in set forms that are without independence,
what they will afterwards become in a more independent way during the
Earth time.
Thus we have two preparatory epochs of Moon evolution and again two
epochs in the declining time, Such epochs may be called
cycles or rounds. In the intervening time,
after the two preparatory epochs but before the epochs of decline
in the time, that is to say, when Moon and Sun are severed
we shall be able to recognize three distinct epochs. The middle
one is the time when the Sons of Life reach their human stage. It is
preceded by an epoch when the conditions are all leading up to this
central event, and it is followed by another, wherein the Sons of
Life enter more fully into the new creations and carry their
development further. These three epochs when taken together with the
two of preparation and the two of decline, make seven rounds in all.
Moon evaluation as a whole may therefore be said to take its course in
seven rounds. Between the rounds are intervals of rest, such as we
have already had frequent occasion to describe. But if we want to have
a true picture of what happens, we must not imagine an abrupt
transition from activity to interval of rest. The Sun Beings, for
example, gradually withdraws from their activities on the Moon. A time
begins for them which, seen from without, appears as their interval of
rest, while on the Moon itself, quick, independent activity continues.
In this way the period of activity for one kind of Being will often
extend into the period of rest for another. Taking this into account,
we may speak of a rhythmic waxing and waning of forces in cyclic
epochs. Nay more, a similar division is also recognizable within each
of the seven Moon cycles above indicated. The whole of Moon evolution
may be described as one great or planetary cycle; the
seven divisions within it as small cycles, and their sub -divisions
are still smaller ones. This seven times sevenfold division can be
observed also in Sun evolution, and even in the Saturn epoch there is
a suggestion of it. It should however be borne in mind that the
dividing lines are to some extent obliterated in the Sun epoch and
still more so in Saturn. They grow increasingly distinct, the farther
evolution proceeds towards the Earth epoch.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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