THEOSOPHY AND ROSICRUCIANISM
14 Lectures by Dr. RUDOLF
STEINER, delivered from the 16th
to the 29th of June 1907.
From
greatly abbreviated notes not revised by the lecturer.
IX.
THE EARTH'S PASSAGE THROUGH ITS
FORMER PLANETARY CONDITIONS.
In continuation of yesterday's
sketch on the planetary evolution, let us now add some further
explanations. We have already explained that our earth once
passed, through a Saturn, a Sun and a Moon condition. Let me now
describe to you these successive states of existence, as they are
usually described in occultism. When speaking of the soul's
development along the path of knowledge, we shall be able to
understand many things which can now only be advanced hypothetically.
If we consider the Saturn state
of existence, that condition of our earth lying millions and millions
of years before the present time, we find that it presented an aspect
greatly differing from the one which is taken for granted
through our present physical conditions. Above all, we should bear in
mind that man, the most perfect being we know, has passed through
the longest course of development. You will therefore hear the
description of a course of development which greatly deviates from
the Haeckel-Darwin theory of evolution, but the advantages of this
purely materialistic theory may be gathered from my book,
“Haeckel, the Riddles of the World and Theosophy”.
The first thing to be grasped is
that the most perfect beings are those who passed through the longest
course of development, and the most perfect being of all is man,
especially the physical body of man. All other beings in our
environment have not attained to the perfection of man's physical
body, which has taken longer than all others for its development. If
we look back through spiritual vision, we therefore find that the
first foundation of man's physical body was laid upon Saturn. The
whole universe, with all the beings and objects which it; contained;
influenced the first state of the earth's existence. The present
human beings on our planet still possess all the organs which were
formed upon Saturn and they are the most perfect parts of man's
physical body, namely, the sense-organs. These apparatuses can be
grasped from a purely physical aspect and their first foundation
was, then laid. Of course, you must not think-that the eye existed on
Saturn in the same form in which it exists to-day. But the first
foundation of the eye, the ear, of every sense-organ and of all the
other purely physical apparatuses of the human being appeared on
Saturn. The only activities existing upon Saturn which may still be
found to-day, are those which pertain to the mineral kingdom.
(Crystallizations, etc.)
Upon Saturn, the human being
existed in the form which was the first foundation of his physical
body, everything, else, the blood, the tissues, etc. did not then
exist. Physical apparatuses constituted the first basis of man's
physical body. Even as the emerald, the mica, etc. arise through
physical laws and develop in the form of cubes, hexæders, etc.,
so at that time forms developed which resembled apparatuses and which
existed upon Saturn in the same way in which crystals now exist
upon the earth. The activity of Saturn's surface essentially
consisted in a kind of reflection which went out into the
universal space. The Beings in Saturn's environment who were
scattered in the universal spaces sent down their influences.
Something which we may call the “cosmic aroma” was also
then strongly developed. Only a few phenomena of the present day
may give you a feeling for what took place upon Saturn; for example,
when you hear an echo in Nature, the sound of this echo can convey to
you something which went streaming out of Saturn as the result of the
impressions which it received. These conglomerations of forces
resembling apparatuses which threw back pictures in the universal
space, formed the first foundation of that which developed later on
as the eye. In a similar way we might follow the development of
everything else. What you now have within your body, was once upon
Saturn a physical kingdom, which sent out into the world's spaces the
reflection of the whole cosmos in a manifold manner.
Myths and legends preserved this
knowledge far more clearly than one generally supposes. The Greek
myth of Chronos and Rhea, proceeding from the Eleusinian Mysteries,
preserved for example such a truth; it contains, however, a great
displacement of facts, due to the way in which the Greeks viewed
the great cosmic connections. This myth tells us that Chronos sent
down his rays and that these rays then returned to him in many forms;
this explains the picture of Chronos devouring his children.
Now you must not think that the
Saturn mass was as firm and solid as the physical bodies of to-day;
even water and air do not give you an idea of Saturn's fundamental
substance. When speaking of bodies in occultism, we speak of solid,
liquid and gaseous bodies. And if we speak of the elements, in the
old manner, they correspond to that which modern chemistry designates
as the “aggregate conditions” of matter, for you must not
think that the men of olden times, when speaking of the “elements”,
meant the same thing as we do. Then there is a higher “aggregate
state”, designated in ancient occultism as “fire”,
a better meaning is however, conveyed by calling it “heat”.
Even physics will be obliged to recognise that what is
designated as heat, may be compared, with a kind of fourth
aggregate state, with another kind of substance differing from air
and water. The Saturn mass was not even condensed to the state of air
it consisted of purified heat, and its activity resembled that of the
heat contained in your blood, for it was connected with inner
life-processes. The physical processes upon Saturn were real
life-processes. Saturn consisted of heat-substance, of an immensely
fine volume which may be designated as neutral, if compared with our
present substances.
If we wish to study the Beings
who inhabited Saturn, we must realise that the Beings whom we now see
moving about upon the earth, then possessed only the first beginning
of a physical body; they were embodied in heat-substance, and their
activity consisted in a current of heat which moved about. These
currents constituted the deeds of the Beings who filled Saturn with
life. Even as to-day you are able to make a table, so these
Saturn-beings did their work by producing currents of heat. Nothing
else could be observed of these Beings. A greeting exchanged upon
Saturn was as if two currents of heat moved to and fro, exchanging
their forces.
The Beings who passed through the
human stage upon Saturn did not possess a physical body as their
lowest member, for they did not descend into matter so deeply as to
require a physical body. Their lowest member was the Ego, even as
to-day our lowest member is the physical body; then came their
Sprit-Self or Manas, their Life-Spirit or Buddhi, their Spirit-Man or
Atma. In addition they developed an eighth, ninth and tenth member,
which must be included.
Theosophical literature calls
these members which the human being has not yet developed, the “Three
Logoi”; in Christianity they are called the Holy Spirit,
the Son or the Word, and the Father. We may therefore say: Even as
the human being now consists of physical body, etheric body, astral
body and Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man, so these
Beings living upon Saturn, who in regard to their connection with the
earth may be compared with the present human beings, consisted of
Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man, of the Holy Ghost, the Son
or Word, and the Father. The theosophical terminology designates them
as “asuras”. They are the Beings who from the very
beginning implanted into the physical foundation of man's body the
feeling of independence, of Ego-consciousness and of Ego-feeling. You
could not use your eye in the service of the Ego had your eye's
foundation not been prepared at that time, so that now you are
enabled to place your eye at the service of the Ego. These members
were therefore prepared by the Spirits of the Ego, also named the
Spirits of Egoism. They gave us the wisest thing of all, when
developed in the right, way. But everything of the highest nature
becomes perverted into its opposite-if it is not developed in the
right way, because then it exercises the most harmful and destructive
influence. Man could never reach that high stage which we designate
as human dignity, had not these Spirits of Egoism implanted, in him
the Ego-feeling. There have always been Beings who followed an evil
course, and consequently we must say: The Beings who implanted the
Ego into man and who are now upon a stage of development greatly
surpassing the human one, those Beings to whom we may look up as the
highest of all, gave their Ego as an offering of self-renunciation
and sacrifice; but the others followed the development of their Ego
in a selfish manner.
In striving after freedom and
human dignity we bear within us the influences of the Spirits of the
Ego who followed the good path, and we bear within us the seed of
evil, because the influence of the Beings who fell away continued to
be active. This contrast has always been felt. Christianity itself
makes a distinction between God the Father, whom it considers as the
most highly developed Spirit of Saturn, and his opponent, the Spirit
of all the evil Egos and of everything which is radically immoral,
the Spirit who fell away upon the ancient Saturn. These are the two
representatives of Saturn.
Even as after death we encounter
other forms of existence, so a cosmic body, such as Saturn, passes
through a kind of intermediate state, a kind of sleep-condition,
before it enters into a new condition; it passes through a “pralaya”
in contrast to a “manvantara”, so that we have a kind of
resting, passive condition, of the planet, between the Saturn and the
Sun state of existence. The whole planet then emerges in a new form
from its sleeping state, which is, however, a spiritual one.
Saturn thus emerged as the Sun,
and a considerable transformation had taken place. Upon the Sun, a
great number of the germs which had already developed upon Saturn and
which are still developing within us to-day, were permeated by an
etheric body. During such a planetary transition something evolves
which may be compared with the fruit of a plant, which we lay in the
earth; it decays, but it forms the foundation of a new plant. Thus
everything which developed upon Saturn arose again upon the Sun with
a new foundation and it became permeated with on etheric body.
There were also other beings who
had remained behind upon the mineral-physical stage, and they can be
compared with the present mineral kingdom. The Sun absorbed them as a
kind of subordinate kingdom of Nature, but at the same time another
kingdom was raised to the stage of plant-man.
You obtain a right conception of
the Sun-atmosphere if you imagine a thick, chemical gas, no longer
representing a merely reflecting body, but one which absorbed
everything which came raying towards it, and after having transformed
it, reverberated it in the same way in which plants now
reverberate colours. The plant forms its green colour and other
substances and returns them to the cosmic spaces. That which lived
upon the ancient Sun cannot be compared with an echo, nor with a
reflected image, as in the case of Saturn; in regard to the beings
embodied upon the Sun, we come across a phenomenon which can only be
compared with a kind of fata morgana, with atmospheric phenomena
resembling coloured pictures. Such phenomena which can only be
perceived to-day in certain regions of our globe, can give you an
idea of how these plant-bodies could be perceived. You must imagine
that your bodies revealed certain fata morgana-like processes,
through which your present bodies could pass as if through air. You
were then as transparent as a fata morgana — but this
phenomenon did not only consist of light, but also of tones and
smells whirring through the gas-sphere of the Sun.
Whereas the beings living upon
the Sun could shine like the fixed stars of to-day, the ancient
Saturn kingdom of the beings who had remained behind, could be
observed like a dark mass, like dark forms against the light, like
obtuse caverns in the body of the Sun, which disturbed its
harmony. Particularly in regard to the “cosmic aroma”
these retarded beings mixed into it sensations which provoked all
kinds of evil smells. Myths have retained a recollection of this, for
they relate that the Devil leaves behind an evil smell. As it
progressed, the Sun really left behind a dark part, and the sun-spots
which are visible now, are the remnants of the: ancient Saturn
kingdom which once existed upon the Sun. Hypothetically these spots
should be explained exactly as we explain them now; for all these
explanations are valid.
In a short sketch you thus have
the earth's sun-existence painted, as it were, from its
material aspect. Let us now see who were the Beings who attained the
human stage upon the Sun. They would have to be described as follows:
Their lowest body is the astral body, then comes the Ego, the
Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, the Spirit-Man or Atma, then the Holy
Ghost in the Christian meaning, and finally the Son or the Word. They
did not have the Father, for this member was only developed during
the Saturn era. These Saturn Spirits meanwhile rose to a still higher
stage, and now they stand far above the human being.
The Leader of the Sun Spirits, in
so far as He exercised the highest influence upon the earth, the
representative of the Spirits whose highest member was the Son or the
Word, is the Christ, in the esoteric meaning of Christianity. His is
the real regent of the earth, in so far as the earth is based upon
the Sun state of existence. Upon the Sun, Christ would not yet have
been called by that name. The old form of Christianity always
taught this truth, and the difference between genuine Christianity
and the exoteric form of Christianity, which is in so many cases
based upon misunderstandings, is that the older form of Christianity
exerted all its thinking power and applied every conception in order
to understand that high Being Who took on human shape in. Jesus of
Nazareth. The ancient form of Christianity wished to gain a
conception of what lay at the foundation of this mystery, and no
wisdom was too high for it, or too complicated. It explained the
Being of Christ within Jesus of Nazareth in accordance with this
truth. Many a passage in the Gospel of St. John can only be
understood if you grasp it from this aspect. It suffices to draw
attention to one point: If you take the words, “I am the Light
of the World” literally, these imply that the Christ is the
great Sun Hero, and that the Light which belongs to the Sun
constitutes His being. We designate the whole hosts of Spirits whose
Leader is the Christ as the “Fire Spirits” and we say:
The ASURAS or the EGO SPIRITS reached the human stage during the
Saturn era. During the Sun existence the FIRE SPIRITS or the LOGOI
whose highest representative is named the Logos or the Word, reached
this stage. For this very reason, Christ is named the “Word”
that existed in “the beginning”, and the “beginning”
designates in the Bible a definite point of departure in the cosmic
evolution.
Again we have an intermediate
condition, a kind of sleeping condition for the whole cosmic body,
and then it begins to shine forth, again as the ancient Moon.
You must imagine that in the
beginning the present Earth and the present Moon formed one body with
the Sun. Only when the Sun began to shine forth again, one part of
the Beings separated from it with their own environment, so that two
celestial bodies arose. One of these bodies, the Sun, begins to
develop into a fixed star, and the body which separates from it
begins to circle around it. The ancient Sun thus divided itself into
two parts: the more highly developed substance remained behind upon
the Sun, and the less perfect substance was eliminated. Consequently,
that which once pursued the same course, because there was only one
body, now followed two separate courses: the Sun path and the Moon
path. The Sun path was the one which developed upon the
Sun-body, whereas the Moon developed its own world. You could
reconstruct the ancient Moon by mixing together the present earth and
the present moon; this would enable you to form a conception of the
way in which the ancient Moon was constituted. Both physically
and spiritually the present Moon is far below the Earth in regard to
its quality, and the Earth separated from the Moon just because it
needed better conditions of life for the Beings Who lived upon it.
The Earth developed beyond the stage it had reached during the Moon
existence, but its best part remained behind upon the Sun,
What was the aspect of things
upon the ancient Moon? The Beings who had passed through a
preparatory stage upon Saturn by developing the physical foundation
of the sense-organs, transformed these organs upon the Sun by
permeating them with an etheric body; the sense organs thus became
centralised, and the first basis of the organs of growth reaching as
far as the glands could unfold upon the ancient Sun under the
influence of the etheric body, this was a final product of the Sun
existence.
Upon the Moon, the astral body
was added in a similar manner. Everything astral first existed in the
surroundings; the Fire Spirits had an astral body as their lowest
member. The Beings upon the Sun resembled plants; for instance, they
could not move from their fixed places. Although the whole body of
the Sun was gaseous, you must imagine air-strata of greater density
which were the bodies of these human plants. But now the astral body
of man was added; this gave rise to the first foundation of a nervous
system. The kingdom which had reached the plant stage of development
upon the Sun, passed over to the animal stage, to a stage resembling
that of animals. The physical ancestors of man upon the Moon thus
possessed three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body and the
astral body, yet they greatly surpassed the most highly developed
apes of our planet; they were human animals which no biology can
describe, an intermediate kingdom between man and animal. Our present
vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms only developed later; but even
as there were human animals, so we must admit the existence of
an intermediate kingdom between plant and animal; plants with a kind
of sentient capacity, plants which literally squeaked if one touched
them. These plant-animals could, never have grown upon a mineral
soil, such as the present soil of the Earth; in fact, this mineral
soil did not exist upon the Moon. Its mass did not consist of the
present rocky substances, not even of loose soil. Comparatively
speaking, the Moon's foundation consisted of a mass resembling a mash
of cooked spinach or salad, and in it a kind of mineral plant. The
whole foundation of the Moon was therefore of vegetable nature.
A peat bed of to-day would resemble the kingdom which existed at that
time as an intermediate kingdom between our plants and minerals.
There were no rocks, and anyone walking over the ground would have
walked over such a peaty ground or vegetable foundation, and.
analogously you may think of rocks in the form of woodened portions
within this mass.
The plant-animals grew out of
this whole foundation, and above them, in the Moon's environment
which may be designated as “fire-air”, moved those beings
who were man-animals. Imagine the whole atmosphere filled with
saltpetre, carbon and sulphur gases; the Moon-men lived in this fiery
air which you would thus obtain. Occultists always knew of the
existence of this fire-air, and under older conditions of the Earth
it was even possible to produce this fire-air artificially. This is
only possible to-day in a very restricted circle, but this knowledge
has been preserved in genuine alchemy. Consequently, if you road in
Goethe's “FAUST”, “Let me produce a little
fire-air”, this touches the depths of occultism. Fire-air
enwrapped the Moon; this was its atmosphere.
We can understand this
Moon-existence even better if we add another fact.
Upon the Moon there was a kingdom
of plant-minerals, of animal-plants growing out of this
vegetable-mineral soil, and then there were the animal-men moving
about upon it. But upon each stage there are beings who remain behind
— you may, if you like, say that they did not “pass”.
This is the case not only at school, but also in the great course of
development; where a pupil may have to repeat a class. These beings
who did not “pass” appear in future stages of development
in very peculiar conditions. Such stragglers of the plant-minerals
who did not “pass” still exist in parasites, for instance
in the mistletoe. It cannot grow upon mineral soil, because it was
accustomed to grow upon a vegetable-mineral soil. It proves a fact
resembling that of a pupil who did not move on to a higher form;
except that the case of the beings who remain behind in the cosmic
development is far worse. Particularly in the North we come across a
myth which describes this; you are all acquainted with the northern
myth of Baldur and his death through Loki.
The Gods were frolicking about in
the Aesir's home and in their games they hurled about all kinds of
objects. Baldur had just before had dreams foreboding his early
death, and the Gods were therefore afraid to lose him. The Mother of
the Gods had taken an oath from all living and inanimate beings and
they had all promised that they would never hurt Baldur, and so the
Gods enjoyed the game of throwing all manner of weapons
against Baldur. Loki, the opponent of the Gods, had discovered that
ONE being, who was considered to be harmless, had not made any
promise, and this was the mistletoe, which lay in hiding somewhere in
the distance. Loki obtained the mistletoe, gave it to the blind god
Hodur, who threw it at Baldur; the mistletoe wounded Baldur, for it
had not sworn the oath, and Baldur died.
This myth indicates that that
which is invulnerable upon the Earth can only suffer harm through
that which has remained behind from another existence as something
evil. In the mistletoe people saw something which had entered the
present state of existence from an earlier one. All the beings
now living upon the earth can only suffer harm through that which has
remained behind from an earlier one. All the beings now living upon
the Earth are connected with Baldur. But it was otherwise upon the
Moon; consequently that being which had remained behind from the Moon
was able to kill Baldur. All the various customs connected with the
mistletoe arise out of this foundation.
We should also consider the Moon
existence from another aspect, from the spiritual one. The Moon
Beings who had reached the human stage must be described as beings
whose lowest member was the etheric body, their second one the astral
body, then the Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man or Atma, and
then they also had the Holy Ghost. They no longer had the ninth
member pertaining to the Fire Spirits upon the Sun. The highest of
the Moon Spirits who had reached the human stage is called the “HOLY
GHOST” in Christian esotericism. In the early, original
form of Christianity, the threefold Godhead was therefore intimately
connected with the evolution of the earth. The Holy Ghost is a Spirit
who is above man and who is able to inspire him in a direct way.
Thus you may see that the Moon
Spirits now stand above the human being. They are also called “Lunar
Pitris”, “Moon Fathers” and “Spirits of
Twilight”. The whole host belonging to the Holy Ghost is
called in Christian esotericism the Host of Angels. The Angels are
the Spirits immediately above man, who passed through their human
stage upon the ancient Moon.
The life of the animal-men and of
the plant-animals upon the Moon differed from that of the beings who
developed out of them upon the Earth. The movement of the Moon, which
had already severed itself from the Sun, was quite different from the
movement of the present earth around, the sun. The ancient Moon
circled around the Sun in such a way that it always turned the same
face towards it, even as the Moon to-day always shows the same side
to the earth. The Moon thus turned only once around its own axis,
while circling around the Sun. The Moon Beings were therefore
dependent upon the Sun in quite a different way than is the case with
the present earthly inhabitants. During the Moon's whole epoch of
revolution around the Sun, it was always daytime on one of its sides,
and a kind of night upon the other. The Moon Beings, who were already
able to move about, wandered in a kind of circle around the Moon, so
that they passed through one epoch in which they stood under the
influence of the Moon. The time in which they stood under the Sun's
influence was their time of procreation. For there was already a
kind of procreation. The Moon-men could not as yet express joy and
pleasure through sounds; their expressions had a more cosmic
significance. The sun-epoch was the time of ardour and passion, and
it was connected with a great screaming on the part of the Moon
Beings. This still exists to-day in the animal kingdom.
Many other things have remained
from that time. You know how one tries to investigate the true reason
for the birds' migration, why they circle around the globe in a
certain manner. Many things which are mysteriously concealed to-day,
can be understood if the whole course of earthly evolution is
borne in mind. There was a time when the lunar beings could only
procreate when they wandered towards the Sun: this may be called
their epoch of sexual life. General processes of lunar life expressed
themselves in sounds at certain seasons of the year; and at other
times, the beings upon the Moon were dumb.
We have thus learned to know the
earth's passage through the three preceding conditions of its
existence: that of Saturn, of the Moon and of the Sun.
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