III
Those of you who have
been attending my lecture cycles or single lectures on spiritual-scientific
subjects have had various phenomena of the higher worlds presented from
many different aspects, and various beings as well have appeared to us
from one realm or another and were shown in different lights. In order to
anticipate any possible misconceptions that might arise I should like to
point out today that when these beings and phenomena are illuminated, now
from one angle, now from another, a superficial view might see
contradictions. But if you look more closely you will see that these
complicated facts of the spiritual world can be clarified only by throwing
light on them from many sides. It is necessary to say this because certain
facts with which most of you are already familiar from one aspect must in
part be illuminated today from another, a new angle. We need only turn to
that most profound document of the New Testament, familiar as the Gospel
according to St. John, and read the pregnant words with which we brought
yesterday's discussion to a close, in order to sense the literally endless
enigmas of cosmic and human evolution hidden in the opening words of
this Gospel. In the course of our observations the opportunity may present
itself to show why the great narrators of spiritual events often expressed
precisely the mighty, comprehensive truths in such a concise, paradigmatical
form as we find in the opening verses of the John Gospel. Today we will
return to certain well-known facts of spiritual science, treating them
from an aspect differing from yesterday's, and see in what form we meet
them again in the Gospel of St. John. Let us take our point of departure
from the most elementary facts of spiritual science, comparatively speaking.
As we know, man in his
ordinary state consists of four principles: physical body, etheric or
life body, astral body, and ego, and we know that his daily life alternates
in such a way that during his waking hours these four members of his
being are organically interconnected and interpenetrative in him, whereas
during sleep, while the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, the
astral body and the ego bearer — we may call it simply the ego
— are removed. Now, there is one point we must thoroughly understand
today. In a man of our present stage of evolution we have before us this
fourfold state as an inherent demand. As he lies in bed at night with only
his physical and etheric bodies present he has, in a sense, the status of
a plant; for the plant, as it appears in the outer world, consists only
of physical body and etheric or life body; it bears no astral body or
ego, and is thus differentiated from the animal and from man. The animal
is the first in the scale to have an astral body, and man, an ego. Hence
it can be said that during sleep, when his physical and etheric bodies
alone remain in bed, man is in a sense a plantlike being. But again,
he is not like a plant, and this must be rightly understood. In the
present age a free and independent being having neither astral body
nor ego, but consisting solely of etheric body and physical body, must
have the appearance of a plant — must, in fact, be a plant. On
the other hand man, as he lies asleep in bed, has grown beyond the status
of a plant, because during the course of evolution he has added an astral
body — vehicle of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, impulses,
desires, and passions — and also the vehicle of the ego. But the
acquisition of a higher principle always involves a corresponding alteration
in all that pertains to the lower principles. If an astral body were
added to the plant we see today as a being of outer nature, if this
astral body were not only to hover over the plant but to permeate it,
then what we see penetrating the plant in its substance would have to
become animal flesh. That is because upon entering, the astral body
would transform the plant in such a way as to convert the substance
into animal flesh. And the addition of an ego in the physical world
would entail an analogous transformation.
We may therefore say that
in a being like man, whose nature embraces not only a physical body
but invisible, higher, super-sensible principles as well, the super-sensible
members find expression in the lowest ones. Just as the inner qualities
of your soul are superficially expressed in your features, in your physiognomy,
so your physical body is an expression of the work performed by your
astral body and ego; and the physical body does not represent merely
itself: it stands as the physical expression of the human principles
that are physically invisible. Thus the glandular system and all that
pertains to it is an expression of the etheric body, everything connected
with the nervous system is an expression of the astral body, and all
that is comprised in the circulation is an expression of the ego bearer.
So in the physical body itself we again have to take into account a
fourfold organization; and only one who worships a crass materialistic
world conception could classify the various substances in the human
body as equivalent. The blood pulsating in our veins became the substance
it is as a result of the fact that an ego dwells in us; the form and
substance of the nervous system are due to the presence of an astral
body; and the glandular system is the outcome of the etheric body.
If you will take all this
into consideration you will readily see that between falling asleep at
night and waking up in the morning the human being is really a contradiction
in terms. One is inclined to call him a plant, yet he is not a plant
because the physical substance of a plant lacks the expression of the
astral body — the nervous system — as well as the expression
of the ego — the circulatory system. A physical being such as
man, equipped with a glandular, a nervous, and a circulatory system,
can exist only by means of an etheric body, an astral body, and an ego;
but in the night you forsake your physical and etheric bodies — that
is, in as far as your astral body and ego constitute you a human being.
You basely abandon them, as it were, making them into a self-contradictory
being. Were nothing of a spiritual nature to intervene at this time,
while you simply withdraw your astral body and ego from your physical
and etheric bodies, you would find your nervous and circulatory systems
destroyed when you woke up in the morning; for these cannot exist without
your having an astral body and an ego within you. Therefore the following
takes place, perceptible to clairvoyant consciousness:
In proportion to the withdrawal
of the ego and astral body the clairvoyant sees a divine ego and a divine
astral body enter into man. Actually there is during sleep, too, an
astral body and an ego — or at least a substitute for these —
in the physical and etheric bodies. When man's astral principle passes
out, a higher one moves in — as does similarly a substitute for
the ego. From this it is evident that within the realm of our lives,
within their sphere, beings are at work that have no immediate expression
in the physical world. What comes to expression in the physical world
are minerals, plants, animals, and human beings. The last are for the
moment the highest of the beings within our physical sphere, for they
alone have physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. The fact
that in sleep the astral body and ego withdraw from the physical and
etheric bodies shows us that even today the former retain a certain
independence; that they detach themselves, so to speak, and can live
for a certain length of time every day thus sundered from the physical
and etheric vehicles.
At night, then, we have the following condition: Just as the human physical
body and the human etheric body are by day the bearers of the human
ego and the human astral body — in other words, of the innermost
principles — so by night they become the bearers, or the temple,
of higher astral and ego beings. Now we look with different eyes at
the sleeper, for the astral principle within him is a divine-spiritual
principle, and there is also an ego, but a divine-spiritual ego. In
a sense it can be said that while we are asleep in respect of our astral
body and ego, we are watched over and the structure of our organization
is maintained by these beings that thus become a part of our life, beings
that enter our physical and etheric bodies when we ourselves abandon
these. A great deal can be learned from a fact of this sort; and especially
if taken in conjunction with certain clairvoyant observations it can
elucidate much concerning the evolution of man. What we shall now do
is to correlate this difference between waking and sleeping with the
great spiritual facts of evolution.
The astral body and the
ego appear, to be sure, as the highest and most intimate principles
of man's nature, but by no means do they prove to be the most perfect.
Even to superficial observation the physical body is more perfect than
the astral body. Two years ago I pointed out here[1]
that the more closely we examine man's physical body, the more admirable
it appears in its entire structure. Not only does the marvel of the
human heart or the human brain when examined anatomically satisfy the
mind's acute, intellectual thirst for knowledge, but whoever approaches
these with his soul feels an aesthetic and moral uplift when he realizes
how sublime and wise are the provisions made in this physical body.
The astral body is as yet less advanced. It is the bearer of joy and
sorrow, of impulses, desires, indulgence, and so forth; and we must
admit that in order to satisfy his desires man turns to all sorts of
things hardly calculated to further the wise and ingenious workings
of the heart or the brain. His craving for enjoyment leads him to seek
satisfaction in things like coffee, that are poison for the heart, thereby
proving the astral body's craving for pleasures that harm the wisely
contrived human heart; yet for decades the heart withstands such poisons
consumed by man as a result of his astral body's craving for enjoyment.
This proves that the physical
body is more nearly perfect than the astral body. At some time in the
future the astral body will be incomparably the more perfect of the
two, but at present the development of the physical body is the most
advanced. That is because it is actually the oldest principle of man's
nature. The physical body itself furnishes the evidence that it was
worked upon long before our earth came into being.
The modern doctrine of
the origin of the world grew out of purely materialistic conceptions,
and what it teaches is nothing but a materialistic fantasy; nor does
it matter whether it is called the Kant-Laplace theory or, in the case
of a later one, something else. For comprehending the outer structure
of our world system these materialistic flights are undoubtedly useful,
but they are of no avail in helping us understand anything higher than
what the outer eye sees. Spiritual research shows that just as the human
being passes from incarnation to incarnation, so a cosmic body like
our earth has experienced other formations, other planetary conditions,
in the remote past. Before our earth came into being it was in a different
planetary state, the spiritual state science calls the “old
Moon”.
[2]
This does not refer to our present moon but to an ancestor of our earth
as a planetary being; and just as the human being has developed from
an earlier form of embodiment into what he is today, so our earth has
developed from old Moon to Earth: the old Moon
is a sort of previous incarnation of the Earth. Going still
farther back: a previous incorporation of the old Moon was
the Sun — again not the present sun but an ancestor of
our present earth; and finally, the precursor of this old Sun
was the old Saturn. Those are the states our Earth
passed through: a Saturn state, a Sun state, and a
Moon state, and now it has reached its earth state.
The first germ of our
physical body appeared on the old Saturn. In other words, while
nothing of all that surrounds us today existed on that primeval cosmic
body we designate the old Saturn (not the present planet) —
nothing of our animal or plant life, or even of our mineral kingdom
— yet there were the first rudiments of the present-day human
physical body. This physical human body was constituted very differently
from what it is today: it was present in its earliest germinal state,
then developed during the Saturn evolution; and when the latter was
completed the old Saturn passed through a sort of cosmic night
in the same manner in which man passes through a devachan in order to
reach his next incarnation. Then Saturn became the Sun;
and as the plant arises out of the seed, so the human physical body
reappeared on the old Sun. Gradually this physical body became
permeated by an etheric or life body, so that on the old Sun
the germinal physical body was joined by the etheric or life body. Man
was then not a plant, but he had the status of a plant. He consisted
of physical body and etheric body, and his consciousness resembled that
of sleep, the consciousness of the carpet of plants that is spread out
around us in the physical world today.
The Sun existence
came to an end, and again there intervened a cosmic night, or world
devachan, as we can call it. When the Sun had passed
through this cosmic devachan it was transformed into the old
Moon state. Again we find the human physical and etheric bodies
that had entered on Saturn and the Sun respectively,
but during the Moon evolution the astral body was added. Now
the human being possessed a physical, an etheric, and an astral body.
Thus you see that the physical body, having come into being on
Saturn, was already passing through its third state on the
Moon; and the etheric body that had been added on the Sun
now rose to its second stage of perfection. The astral body, just
engendered, was in its first stage in the Moon period.
Something now happened on
the Moon that would not have been possible during the Saturn
and Sun stages. While the latter had kept man a comparatively
homogeneous being, the following event occurred when the old Moon
was at a certain stage of development: The whole heavenly body split
into two members, a sun and its satellite, the Moon; so that
while in the case of Saturn and the Sun we have the
evolution of a single planet, only the first part of the Lunar
evolution can be thus characterized. That is because in the beginning
everything that constitutes our present earth, sun, and moon was united
in one primordial cosmic body in a single state, and then two bodies
came into being. The sun that had its genesis at that time was not our
sun, nor was it the old Sun, mentioned above: it was a special
state that detached itself from the old Moon as a sun state;
and along with it there came into being a planet, outside of the sun
and circling it, which in turn we call the old Moon minus the
sun; that is, the Moon.
Now, what is the significance
of this division that took place in our earth's predecessor during the
evolution of the old Moon? It lies in the fact that along with
the sun the higher beings and the finer substances withdrew from the
whole stellar mass as sun, while the coarser substances and the lower
beings remained with the Moon. So during the evolution of the old Moon
we have two heavenly bodies instead of one: a sun body, harboring the
higher beings, and a Moon body, the dwelling place of the lower beings.
Had the whole remained united, with no separation occurring, certain
beings who developed on the sundered Moon could not have kept pace with
the sun beings: they were not sufficiently mature, and therefore had
to segregate, cast out, the coarser substances and build for themselves
a sphere of action apart. Nor could the higher beings have remained
united with these coarser substances, for it would have obstructed their
more rapid progress. They, too, required a special field for their development,
and that was the Sun.
Now let us turn to the
beings dwelling on the old Sun and those on the old Moon,
after the separation. We have learned that the potential human physical
body had its inception during the Saturn state, that on the
Sun the etheric body was added, and on the Moon, the
astral body. Now, these human beings — or primeval men, if we
may so call them — on the Moon had, in fact, remained
with the Moon when it split off; and these were the ones who could not
keep pace with the rapid development of the sun beings — those
who had gone with the sun and now dwelt within the finer substances
and matter on the sun. This also accounts for their becoming coarser
during the Moon evolution. During this period, then, we have
man in a state consisting of physical body, etheric body, and astral
body; in other words, he had attained to the evolutionary stage of a
present-day animal, for an animal has the physical, etheric, and astral
bodies. But you must not imagine man on the old Moon as having
been really an animal: his form was very different in appearance from
anything in the present animal world, and it would strike you as utterly
fantastic if I were to describe it.
Summing up, then: On the
old Moon we find what may be called the ancestors of present-day
man, equipped with physical, etheric, and astral bodies, in whom these
principles tended to become rigid after the division — to become
coarser than they would have become had they remained with the sun.
But all that had split off with the sun had also passed through this
threefold development, the Saturn, Sun, and Moon
evolutions. This, however, proceeded in the direction taken by the sun,
whereas the ancestors of men followed the Moon. These beings that went
with the sun show a threefold organism closely paralleling that of man.
On the sun, too, were beings who had acquired three principles, so to
speak; but these had become finer instead of coarser after the separation.
Think of the process as follows: After the split the human forebears
became denser beings than they were before, they tended to solidify;
while corresponding beings on the sun became more rarefied. Through
having acquired an astral body during the Moon evolution, man
in a sense descended to the level of an animal; but the beings that
did not take part in this development — those that carried the
finer substances with them to the sun — became finer.
So while man was hardening
on the Moon, being of lofty spirituality arose on the sun. In spiritual
science this spirituality is designated the counterpart of what evolved
on the Moon. On the Moon men developed up to the rank of the animal,
so to speak, although they were not animals. Now, in dealing with the
animal kingdom people have always quite justifiably distinguished between
different grades of animals, and the animal men on the Moon appeared
in three grades differing essentially from one another. In spiritual
science these are termed the grades of the “Bull”, the “Lion”,
and the “Eagle”. Those are typical configurations, as it
were, of the animal world. The old Moon was inhabited by the
three groups: Bull men, Lion men, and Eagle men. — Although these
connotations apply in no way to our present bulls, lions, and eagles,
the deteriorated character of those primordial Moon men which we call
Lion-men is nevertheless expressed, to a certain extent, in the feline
species; in the character of the hoofed animals there comes to expression
the degenerated nature of the so-called Bull men, and so forth. —
That describes the densified nature of man after a three-stage development.
But on the sun dwelt the
spiritual counterparts of these, also consisting of three groups. While
the development of the astral principle on the Moon was shaping these
three different animal men, the corresponding spiritual men arose on
the sun as Angelical beings, spirit beings. These, too, are known as
Lion, Eagle, and Bull, but as the spiritual counterparts of the others.
So when you contemplate the sun you see spiritual beings whom you envision
as the beautiful prototypes conceived in wisdom, while on the Moon you
find something like hardened replicas of what dwells on the sun.
But something in the
nature of a mystery underlies all this. These images down on the Moon
are not without connection with their spiritual counterparts on the
sun. On the Moon we have a group of primordial men, the Bull men, and
on the sun a group of spirit beings connoted “Bull spirits”;
and there is a spiritual connection between prototype and image. That
is because the group soul is the prototype and acts as such upon the
images. The forces proceed from the group soul and direct the image
down below: the Lion spirit directs the beings who, as Lion men, are
its image; the Eagle spirit guides the Eagle men, and so on. If these
spirits up above had remained united with the Moon, bound to their replicas
and inhabiting them, their activity would have been paralyzed; they
could not have exercised the forces needed for the salvation and development
of the images. They understood that they had to foster on a higher level
what was destined to evolve on the Moon. The Bull spirit felt, I must
care for the Bull men; but on the Moon I cannot find the conditions
for my own progress, hence I must dwell on the sun and from there send
down my forces to the Bull men. — And the same applies to the
Lion spirit, and the Eagle spirit.
That is the way evolution
proceeded. Certain beings needed a sphere of action above those that
were their physical images, so to speak. The latter required a lower,
lesser field. In order to function effectually the spiritual beings
had to sunder the sun from the Moon and then send down their forces
from without. Thus we see on the one hand a development downward, so
to say, and on the other, an upward trend.
The evolution of the old
Moon (as a cosmic period) proceeds. By acting upon their images from
without, the spiritual beings spiritualize the Moon, with the result
that the latter can in time reunite with the sun. The prototypes take
their images back into themselves, absorb them, as it were. Another
world devachan comes about, a cosmic night. (This is also known
as a pralaya, whereas stages like Saturn, Sun,
and Moon are called manvantaras.) Following this cosmic
night there issues out of the obscurity of the cosmic womb our Earth
stage, whose mission it is to advance man to the stage at which he can
add the ego, or ego bearer, to his physical, etheric, and astral bodies.
In the meantime, however, all previous evolution must be repeated; for
whenever a higher stage is to be reached a cosmic law demands the repetition
of all that had already taken place. The Earth had thus to
pass once more through the old Saturn stage: again the first
potential beginnings of the physical body evolved as out of the cosmic
germ; and then followed a repetition of the Sun and Moon
stages.
At this time sun, earth,
and moon still formed a single body; but now a repetition of previous
events takes place: the sun again splits off, and again those loftier
beings that need this higher sphere for their development depart with
the sun, carrying with them the finer substances they need for creating
their cosmic sphere of action. Thus the sun left the Earth, which at
that time still bore the moon within its body, and took with it those
beings who were sufficiently advanced to find their further development
on the sun. You will readily imagine that among these beings were to
be found primarily those that had previously functioned as prototypes.
All these beings, who during the old Moon period had attained
to adequate maturity, progressed rapidly, with the result that they
could no longer live in the denser substances and among the earth-plus-moon
beings: they had to detach themselves and establish a new existence
on the sun — our present sun.
Who were these beings?
They were the descendants of those who, back in the old Moon
state, had developed on the sun as the Bull, Lion, and Eagle spirits;
and the loftiest of these, the most advanced, were those who had merged
within themselves the natures of Eagle, Lion, and Bull in a harmonious
unity. They are the beings that can be connoted human prototypes
— spirit men in the true sense of the term. Keep in mind that
among the spiritual beings, who during the old Moon period
were to be found on the sun as Bull, Eagle, and Lion spirits, some had
attained to a higher plane of development, and these are the Spirit
Men proper whose dwelling place is now principally the sun. They
are spiritual counterparts, so to speak, of what is in the process of
evolution down below on the severed earth-plus-moon; but those that
are developing down there are the descendants of the beings that had
lived on the old Moon. Now, you can imagine that since a certain
condensation, a solidification of these beings had already set in on
the old Moon, a tendency to condense, to solidify, to dry out
would be all the more pronounced in their descendants. Indeed, a sad
and dreary period commenced for this sundered portion which then comprised
earth-plusmoon. Above, on the sun, an ever fresher and livelier development,
ever fuller life; below, on the Earth, misery and barrenness, steadily
increasing rigidity.
Something now occurred
without which evolution would have been brought to a standstill: the
moon as we know it today separated from the earth-plus-moon body, and
what remained is our present earth. In this way the coarsest substances
withdrew before rendering the earth completely hard, and the latter
was saved from total desolation.
To summarize all this:
At the beginning of our Earth evolution the Earth
formed one body with our present sun and moon. Had the Earth (earth
plus moon) remained with the sun, man would never have been able to
reach his present stage of development: he could not have kept pace
with a development such as the beings on the sun needed. What developed
up there was not man as he is on earth, but his spiritual prototype
of which, as he appears in his physical body, he is really but an image.
And on the other hand, had the moon remained within the earth, man would
have gradually dried out and mummified, and have found no possibility
of further development on Earth. The Earth would have become a barren,
arid cosmic body; and in place of human bodies as we know them today,
something like lifeless statutes would have developed, growing up out
of the ground like desiccated men. This was prevented by the secession
of the moon, which withdrew into cosmic space and took with it the coarsest
substances. That made it possible for an ego to be added to the physical,
etheric, and astral bodies already present in the descendants of the
old Moon beings; and because the forces of sun and moon acted
from without and there held each other in balance, man could experience
fructification by the ego.
The earth was now the
scene of further human evolution. All that had come over from the old
Moon represented in a certain respect a devolution, a development into
a lower stage; but now there appeared a new impetus, an impulse upward.
— And in the meantime the progress of those corresponding spiritual
beings who had remained with the sun steadily continued.
Let us suppose we have
a block of hard iron before us and that our muscles are of average strength.
We pound and hammer the iron, trying to beat it flat, but we cannot
manage to give it any form until we have softened the substance by heat.
Something of this sort happened to the earth after the densest substances
had withdrawn with the moon. Now the earth beings could be formed, and
now the sun beings again took a hand — those beings who as early
as the old Moon state had intervened there from the sun as
the group souls. Before the moon split off, substances were too dense;
but now these beings asserted themselves as forces that gradually shaped
and developed man to his present form.
Let us examine this more
closely. Imagine you could have stood on this ancient heavenly body
that consisted of earth-plus-moon. You would have beheld the sun out
in space; and if you had been clairvoyant you would also have seen the
spiritual beings described above. On the Earth you would have perceived
a sort of solidification, of desolation, and it would have struck you
that all about was nothing but aridity and death on the Earth; for
the forces of the sun could gain no influence over all this that was
on its way to becoming a great cosmic graveyard. — And then you
would have seen the body of the moon detach itself from the Earth. You
would have seen the substances of the earth becoming malleable and plastic,
with the result that the forces descending from the sun were once more
able to act. And you would have seen the Bull, Lion, and Eagle spirits
regaining their influence over the human beings that were their images.
You would have understood that the moon, isolated, had lost some of
its harmful influence through its withdrawal, for thenceforth it could
act only from a distance; and that in this way the earth was rendered
capable of receiving what the spiritual beings had to give. Tomorrow
we shall see what sort of a picture presents itself to the clairvoyant
when he traces the more remote phases of evolution in the akashic
record.
We know that during the
old Saturn stage the first beginning of the human physical
body was formed. What today we see as the physical human form first
took shape on Saturn as though emerging from cosmic chaos.
Then came the Sun stage during which the etheric body was added
to the physical; and on the old Moon these were joined by the
astral element in the case of those beings who continued their development
on the sundered Moon, as well as of the spirits who had remained with
the sun. On the sun dwelt the spiritual prototypes, on the Moon, their
counterparts on the animal level; and finally, upon the Earth
there had gradually evolved a condition under which man was once more
able to receive into himself the astral element developed on the sun
during the Moon evolution, an element that now acted in him as a force.
Let us now trace these
four states. The exalted power which during the Saturn stage
provided the spiritual germ of the physical human form is called by
the author of the John Gospel the Logos. The element that was
added on the Sun and merged with what had arisen on Saturn
he designates Life, known to us accordingly as the etheric
or life body. And what was subjoined on the Moon he terms the
Light, for it is the spiritual light, the astral light. On
the severed Moon this astral light effected a hardening, but on the
sun itself, a spiritualization. What was thus engendered as spirit could
and did continue to develop; and when the sun again split off, the principle
that had evolved during the third stage shone into men, but man was
as yet unable to see what thus shone in from the sun. It took part in
the shaping of man, acted as a force; but man could not see it.
What we have in this way
come to recognize as the essence of the Saturn evolution we
can now express in the words of the Gospel of St. John:
In the beginning was
the Logos.
Now we pass to the Sun.
To denote what came into being on Saturn and was further developed
on the Sun, we say, the etheric body was added:
And the Logos was
Life.
On the Moon the
astral element entered into both the physical and the spiritual aspects
of men:
Within the animated
Logos Light arose.
When the separation occurred
the light developed in two directions: on the sun into a clairvoyant
light, among men into darkness. For when man was to receive the light
he, who was the darkness, comprehended it not.
So if we illuminate the
John Gospel by means of the akashic record, what we read concerning
cosmic evolution is a follows: In the beginning, during the Saturn
evolution, everything had come into being out of the Logos;
during the Sun evolution, Life was in the Logos;
and out of this living Logos there arose Light during
the Moon evolution. Finally, out of the living, light-filled
Logos there appeared on the sun, during the Earth
evolution, the Light in heightened luster — but men walked in
darkness. And the beings who had become the advanced spirits of Bull,
Lion, Eagle, and Man, shone down as light from the sun to the earth
and into the forms of men that were taking shape. But these were the
darkness, and they could not comprehend the light that shone down upon
them. — Naturally we must not think of this as the physical light,
but rather, as the Light that was the sum of the radiations from the
spiritual beings, the spirits of Bull, Lion, Eagle, and Man, who constituted
the continuation of the spiritual evolution of the Moon. It was the
spiritual Light that streamed down. Men could not receive it, could
not comprehend it. Their whole development was advanced by it, but without
their consciousness taking part. The light shone in the darkness; and
the darkness comprehended it not.
Thus paradigmatically
does the writer of the John Gospel present these great verities; and
those versed in such matters have ever been called the “servants
or ministers of the Logos as it was from the beginning.” He who
speaks thus was such a minister or servant of the Logos as it was from
the beginning; and in the Luke Gospel we find what is basically the
identical disposition. Just read understandingly what the writer of
the Luke Gospel says: his purpose is to report events as they occurred
from the beginning, even as they delivered them unto us, which from
the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the Word.
And we believe that these
documents were written by servants of the Word, or the Logos. We learn
to believe this when by means of our own spiritual research we see what
took place, when we see how our Earth evolution came about by way of
Saturn, Sun, and Moon. And when we then find that we can rediscover,
independent of all documents, what is presented in the comprehensive
words of the John Gospel and in the words of the Luke Gospel, we learn
anew to appreciate these documents and to find in them their own evidence
that they were written by those who could read in the spiritual world.
They provide a means of communication with men of remote times whom
we can face, in a sense, and say, We recognize and know you —
because what they knew we have found again in Spiritual Science.
#160;
Translator's Notes:
1. Cf. Lectures delivered in
Whilhelmshöhe near Kasel, June 16-19, 1907.
2. In his translation of
Occult Science, an Outline,
by Rudolf Steiner, Mr. Henry B. Monges provided an ingenious device
for eliminating the confusion that arises so easily in connection with
the study of planetary evolution. The following footnote, quoted from
Occult Science,
explains it.
In order to make clear the difference between the
designations for the Planetary Evolutions and our present planetary
bodies, which bear the same names, the following device has been
determined on:
Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter,
Venus, Vulcan printed in italics with initial capitals
designate the great cosmic planetary cycles of evolution. In the
Sun
evolution, after the separation of the main cosmic body into two
parts, the designation is Sun and Saturn, spelt with capitals, but
not with italics. In the Moon evolution, when a separation
takes place, the remaining body is spelt Moon, with an initial capital,
the separating planetary sun is spelt with small letters. In the
Earth evolution, the separated planetary bodies are spelt
as is customary: The planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury
with initial capitals; sun, moon, earth with small letters.”
The device is gratefully
adopted in this translation
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