LECTURE SIX
KRISTIANIA —
May 15, 1909
IN ORDER TO PLACE THE TASK OF OUR TIME
and our future
evolution before our souls we must look at the facts we already know.
When we speak of the earth we mean, of course, all of the spiritual
beings that belong to it. At the beginning of our evolution the earth
was not yet separated from the other bodies in our solar system. We
include in our solar system everything up to Saturn; and just as physical
science speaks of a large ancient earth, from which the other heavenly
bodies have come, so also spiritual science speaks of a large, ancient
body called Saturn that reached far out beyond the present earth and
encompassed the entire solar system.
[See Note 1]
Old Saturn
consisted of interweaving, surging warmth. There was no air; the space
in which this primal sphere existed was permeated with regular streams
of warmth. These streams were the predecessors of human beings. At that
time our body consisted of streams of flowing warmth.
We can imagine what this
was like if we think away the bones, nerves, and muscles from the human
being and keep only the warmth of our blood. Only the human being's
warmth substance was present at that time; there was no mineral kingdom,
but the human being existed within the lawfulness of the physical, mineral
world. That is what we today must clearly feel as the first epoch of
our earth evolution.
Then there was a time
when the earth had shed old Saturn but the sun, moon, and earth remained
together as one body. At that time human beings were present in their
bodily nature as forms made of air. All the power that comes from the
sun came forth at that time from within the earth. Everything came from
within outward. Only after the sun had separated from the earth did
it begin to shine upon it from outside. Therefore, we have a second
epoch in human evolution when the human being had an existence as a
form made of air as well as a plantlike form. [Here there is a big gap
in the manuscript. The Moon condition and the Polarian and Hyperborean
ages are described.]
Then the third age comes,
the Lemurian age, when the moon leaves the earth and the beings of the
moon work into the earth from outside it. It would be impossible to
think of the carpet of vegetation covering the earth without the forces
of the sun and the moon working alternately from outside. If the moon
had remained within the earth, then the earth would have become so rigid
that the human being would have been hardened in body and soul. Only
because the moon was separated from the earth could the earth be placed
between the sun and the moon. Otherwise the earth, solely under the
forces of the sun, would have entered into a rate of development that
was much too fast. We thank our position between sun and moon for the
proper tempo of evolution. We have, then, a third stage when the moon
is already outside the earth.
These three stages are
reflected in the post-Atlantean evolution of humankind. What took place
on a grand scale during the evolution of the earth (old Saturn, old
Sun, old Moon) is reflected on a smaller scale in the post-Atlantean
age. We see how the external, cosmic processes of the so-called Polarian
age are reflected in the first post-Atlantean culture, in the ancient
Indian epoch. During the Polarian age everything was inward, was within
the warmth body of the earth; and we see how the ancient Indians felt
all of that in their inner lives. Therefore, their feeling life did
not look out into cosmic spaces. They felt themselves rather as one
with Brahman.
The Polarian age was
followed by the Hyperborean age, with a race of human beings who had
airlike bodies. The sun had separated from the earth and now worked from
outside. This separation was reflected in the ancient Persian cultural
epoch when Zarathustra proclaimed Ahura Mazdao the spirit of the sun. The
sun spirit was the guiding and leading principle of the ancient Persian
cultural epoch.
The third, the Lemurian
age, was reflected during the Egyptian age in the mood of its religion.
The teaching of Osiris and Isis can be characterized from the most varied
sides and points of view. But what is characteristic of this teaching
is the following: In the ancient Lemurian age birth and death did not
yet exist. At first, human beings repeated the condition in which they
had been when the sun had not yet separated from the earth. At that
time they were in a spiritual body. Then, when the sun was no longer
united with the earth, they came to the point of having an airlike body;
and then the human body was filled with a watery mist. Before the Lemurian
age the human being was present only as mist and steam, barely
distinguishable
from what was flowing all around as mist or fog — changeable like
the clouds, constantly changing forms in a way similar to the clouds
of today. In these ancient times the human being was not yet altogether
on the earth, but rather hovered above it. Pieces of this fine matter
were constantly separating off and going away from human beings, welling
up and flowing away from them. The condensation of human bodies into
solid forms only occurred in the Lemurian age. What we call the succession
of incarnations only began to appear with this condensation or
“densification”
of the human being. Only now are the bodily and soul aspects separated
to such an extent that one can say human beings begin to regard the
external as opposed to their inner life. Today we distinguish our inner
and our outer being as the contradiction between our life of soul and
the external world. In the age of the sun, human beings perceived the
spiritual beings surrounding them as their external world. Then came
the age of the separation of the moon. The external began to separate
from the internal. In this way the difference between waking and sleeping
arose. Human beings alternated between states when they were exposed
to the sun and then were turned away from it. Then the time approached
when the human being began to perceive objects on which the sun shone.
At night the forces of the moon continually stimulated the life of the
soul so that human beings distinguished a time when they perceived the
external world and a state when they felt forces that worked through
the moon and made them clairvoyant. Human beings said to themselves
that through the spirituality that lived in the moon, they could perceive
the spiritual world that was inwardly flowing into them through the
forces of the moon. The forces of the moon were reflected sun forces
that the spiritual world mediated to human beings, while the external
world became increasingly perceptible to them during the day.
This was reflected in
the ancient Egyptian's feeling life. The sun spirit was characterized
as Osiris and the soul that seeks the sun spirit was seen as Isis. Thus,
all we have been describing was reflected in the worship of Isis in
the ancient Egyptian culture. Hence, the religious life was a worship
of the moon. Osiris was a sun spirit residing on the moon. He could
be seen clairvoyantly by the souls that sought him. But as the human
being descended more and more into the physical bodily nature this bodily
nature became like a box to Osiris. As human beings increasingly came
to be earth beings in the strict sense, Osiris withdrew more and more.
The Lemurian age was
followed by the Atlantean age — which was reflected in the fourth,
the Greco-Latin
culture. This era had an aspect of the world that had already presented
itself cosmically in the Atlantean age. The human being became denser
and denser. At the beginning of the human being's evolution the bones
were present only as lines of force within. Then the human being became
a being of air, and later a gelatinous being. The forms of the skeletal
system are increasingly formed. On the other hand the powers of soul
were in equal measure greater at that time. The Lemurians, who lived
in viscous bodies in ancient times, had powers of soul much greater than
those of the following races. It was much the same with the Atlanteans.
If cannon balls had existed at that time, for example, such an Atlantean
could have simply deflected any cannon ball through the power in his
soul even though his physical body was not as dense as bodies are today.
In terms of their physical bodily nature, Atlanteans were much thinner
than we are today.
There were beings among
the Atlanteans for whom it was not necessary to evolve into our dense
bodily nature. They were similar to human beings but more highly developed.
These beings could pass through their full stage of human existence
already in those thin Atlantean bodies. They stand one degree higher
than we human beings, for we must descend all the way down into a dense
physical bodily nature in order to develop our I consciousness.
A memory of all these
beings is reflected in the world of ancient Greek gods and in every
aspect of the thinking and feeling of that epoch.
The gods of the European
north are, in a similar way, former companions of humankind —
but they were not as “densified” as the Greek gods. The
ancient Norse bards and singers still knew of them when they allowed
what lived within them to speak. In ancient times, the Edda was not
needed in order to prove that something like this existed. But if God
had not come down to us in the fourth epoch, then human beings would
have forgotten their old companions who had been so well remembered
by many even into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Now we come into our own
age. Human beings no longer have any memory of an earlier age. We now
have nothing to repeat. We have seen how ancient cultures were always
reflected in the previous repetitions. But now in the fifth epoch there
is nothing more for humankind to repeat. The world would have become
empty if, in the fourth epoch, the Yahweh-Christ-God
[See Note 2]
had not come and lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The fifth epoch
would have become the godless epoch if Christ had not descended into
Jesus of Nazareth's body of flesh.
We see the Polarian age
reflected in the ancient Indian age, the Hyperborean in the ancient
Persian, the Lemurian in the Egypto-Chaldean, and the Atlantean in the
Greco-Latin age. And now we will see the important processes that take
place in the etheric and astral bodies of human beings who take into
themselves the knowledge of Christ Jesus in our age.
Notes:
Note 1.
Compare Rudolf Steiner's descriptions in
An Outline of Occult Science
(GA 13) (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1972),
page 114—134.
Note 2.
Compare the following lecture excerpt: “Who
did Moses see on Sinai in the burning bush and in the fire? Christ!
But, just as we do not see the light of the sun directly on the
moon but only reflected sunlight. so ton Moses saw a reflection
of Christ. And just as we call sunlight that has been reflected
by the moon, moonlight, so Christ, at that time was called Yahveh.
Therefore, Yahveh is nothing other than the reflection of Christ
before he appeared on the earth. So Christ was announced to the
human being, who was not yet able to see him in his fundamental,
essential being, just as sunlight announces itself through the rays
of moonlight at night when, were it not for the full moon, the sky
would he dark. Yahveh is Christ, but not seen directly, but rather
as reflected light.” Lecture of September 21, 1909, Basel, in
The Gospel of St. Luke
(GA 114) (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1964).
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