The Rudolf Steiner Archive

34. The Beginning and End of the Earth

[ 1 ] Speaking of the beginning and end of the Earth seems, at first glance, to be a very presumptuous undertaking. Only when one considers how infinitely important it is for humans to occasionally cast their gaze over their entire habitat can it become clear just how important it is to occasionally turn our gaze to the beginning and the end of our planet.

[ 2 ] Not only must we not forget this, but we must also recognize that it is by no means outdated; for all the thinking and feeling of our contemporaries in this area—which we will approach from the standpoint of the humanities—has grown out of the so-called scientific facts and will tolerate scientific insights only on this basis. Today we will have to discuss many things that people will likely think do not stand on the secure ground of facts, which seemingly contradicts what is currently regarded as scientific fact.

[ 3 ] However, the humanities can never, ever limit themselves to [that], to stopping at what people today [often call] the “world of facts”—that which human senses observe around them, perceive in the external world, or which can be synthesized through our scientific methods by the intellect, which relies on [what the senses grasp through the eyes, ears, and hands], namely sensory research.

[ 4 ] The science of the spirit—or, as it is called in the context of a new movement, theosophy—is by no means something that would in any way conflict with the facts of natural science. It would not only be presumptuous but also a senseless endeavor to propose any theory that contradicts well-established, thoroughly researched facts.

[ 5 ] But we must distinguish between what human theory and hypothesis have constructed from these facts as a creed; for, alongside all other religious worldviews of our time, there [is] a kind of materialistic religion, or, since this is no longer a commonly used term, a kind of materialistic creed, which seeks only to be in harmony and accord with what the senses perceive, which accepts only what one can [see with one’s eyes], grasp with one’s hands [or similarly imagine as actual sensory facts in the environment]. Theosophy could thus come into conflict with this.

[ 6 ] But [theosophy] rests on two solid pillars, two insights—you may call them hypotheses; for the theosophist, they are fundamental facts, not merely beliefs.

[ 7 ] One fact is that behind the sensory world there is a spiritual, invisible, supersensory world.

[ 8 ] The other fact is that it is possible for human beings to penetrate this invisible world through their knowledge and research.

[ 9 ] There are many people today who say: Even if the supernatural existed, even if there were a spiritual world, we still could not investigate it. What we know for certain, we know because we can direct our eyes toward visible things.

[ 10 ] Spiritual science, however, says: [Certainly], with the faculties of human nature referred to by such a worldview—which is limited solely to the sensory world—we cannot penetrate the supersensory world. Yet spiritual science, in a much stricter sense than any knowledge based on external facts, holds firmly to what we call evolution. There is much talk of evolution today—and it has been demonstrated how human beings have evolved through many stages to their present form. But once this view has reached this point, it tends to come to a standstill at a certain stage. It assumes that human beings have evolved up to the present; but this view wants nothing to do with further evolution. It exhibits a peculiar inconsistency that one might not admit to theoretically, but which is expressed step by step in attitudes and feelings by saying: Human beings have evolved, but there can be no question of further evolution.

[ 11 ] People who hold this view could be called “I-people” and “we-people.”

[ 12 ] When we consider popular newspaper articles or other popular writings, in which what appears to be well-established science flows into the world through a thousand channels, we frequently encounter this expression: “one cannot know,” “one cannot discern,” or “we cannot discern,” et cetera.

[ 13 ] Let us now ask ourselves this one question: Can a logic that truly understands itself, a mode of thought that truly understands itself, adopt such a standpoint? Is this not the standpoint a blind person would take if a sighted person were to tell him about light, brilliance, and color, and he were to reply: “Everything you’re telling me is mere daydreaming, mere fantasy; one cannot perceive such things”? — In the same way, what our contemporaries—the “I” and “we” people—say appears in contrast to a genuine theory of spiritual development.

[ 14 ] Spiritual science says: There are latent abilities within every human being—spiritual faculties—that can be developed and through which a person can see and perceive more than through their sensory organs. Those others then say: That is fantasy, that is mere daydreaming; we cannot know that.

[ 15 ] But if one delves deeper into what is to come to humanity [in these times] through Theosophy, one will see that, in terms of spiritual development, there is an event for humanity that is far [higher and] more brilliant than what someone experiences who is born blind, undergoes surgery, and regains their sight. When the person born blind undergoes surgery, light, color, and clarity emerge from the world that was previously shrouded in darkness for him—a world he knew only through the sense of touch. A new world dawns before him. If we apply this to spiritual life, we have what [we call] the awakening of the “spiritual eye,” [as] Goethe calls it. [Goethe says: “We must not use what we know to limit what is there.”]

[ 16 ] This awakening, this rebirth of the human being, exists; this new world, which he simply does not know, is there. We must never allow what we know to limit us to believing only in what is here. With every new organ, a new world opens up to humankind. The development of humankind beyond the stage to which nature has brought it—that is what spiritual science is committed to, and where it begins. Theosophy leads us from what we have become involuntarily to what we are to become voluntarily. Nature has given us the physical eyes to see the world around us; we must awaken and acquire the spiritual eyes ourselves. Just as the physical eyes perceive physical light, so will the spiritual eyes take in a spiritual world.

[ 17 ] Since theosophy draws on sources quite different from the combinatorial approach of our contemporaries—[constructing an event based on established facts]—it may at first appear as though there is a stark contradiction between what natural science is and what spiritual science has to say; yet spiritual science does not deny anything that natural science asserts. But with a topic such as today’s—where we connect the distant beginnings of humanity with the goal of human evolution in the distant future—a contradiction between spiritual science and natural science may seem to exist. In reality, spiritual science stands firmly on the ground of scientific facts. Let us first ask: What does natural science have to say about our topic, and by what means does it seek to understand the gradual unfolding of life on Earth?

[ 18 ] Natural science is limited to sensory perception. It examines what is around us in the present, as well as the remnants of a more or less distant past.

[ 19 ] In the layers of our Earth, we find not only what sustains and supports our lives today, but also the remains of beings—the remnants of creatures that once belonged to our Earth in distant prehistoric times. When we dig into them, or otherwise uncover what the layers of our Earth contain, ancient monuments to what took place in prehistoric times on our globe are revealed to us.

[ 20 ] First, we find traces of a not-too-distant past in what remains of our ancestors’ graves and dwellings. This allows us to form a picture of these primitive ancestors, their customs, how they lived, how they cooked, and how they hunted.

[ 21 ] We also find bones—remains of animals that still exist today but had a different form in the past. Finally, we find remains of animal species that are now extinct. Thus, it is easy to see that one layer lies above another: the ones that developed later are always at the top. If we examine all of this carefully, we can reconstruct a picture of how these creatures lived and evolved on our Earth.

[ 22 ] That is why the naturalist believes he is right to say: When we examine the strata that, based on their location, are the oldest, it becomes apparent that at first no living beings of our kind existed, that simple living beings then appeared, followed by increasingly complex ones, all the way up to humans.

[ 23 ] We look back to a distant primeval era of the Earth, when the Earth was still much warmer—indeed, when it was still in a molten state. We then see how the Earth gradually cooled, how the metals solidified, and how solid rock settled; we see how, in a way that is unfathomable to natural science, the first simple plants and animals came into being. We see the Earth covered with simple plants and animals during the periods known as the Silurian and Devonian—when lower animals first appeared, such as fish, followed by amphibians and reptiles.

[ 24 ] We then see eras in which the Earth was covered over vast expanses with gigantic, tree-like plants; we then see how animals lived there that seem fantastical to us today, animals that are now extinct. Then we see how these creatures became extinct, then how the first mammals emerged—such as marsupials—then, relatively late, after the Earth had solidified, how the later mammals gradually emerged, how they evolved, how they evolved all the way up to the apes; and how, only very, very late, humans emerged.

[ 25 ] Science can explain all of this, but it has nothing to say about how life develops from the non-living. It says: Once life existed, living beings evolved to ever higher levels through a constant struggle, [for which they needed and developed organs, and through this they rose up to the level of human beings]. This is the creed that is strictly limited to sensory facts—a picture that, from the standpoint of natural science, would have to present itself to someone who could sit in a chair in outer space and watch the world’s evolution over millions of years.

[ 25 ] Science can explain all of this, but it has nothing to say about how life develops from the non-living. It says: Once life existed, living beings evolved to ever higher levels through a constant struggle, [for which they needed and developed organs, and through this they rose up to the level of human beings]. This is the creed that is strictly limited to sensory facts—a picture that, from the standpoint of natural science, would have to present itself to someone who could sit in a chair in outer space and watch the world’s evolution over millions of years.

[ 25 ] Science can explain all of this, but it has nothing to say about how life develops from the non-living. It says: Once life existed, living beings evolved to ever higher levels through a constant struggle, [for which they needed and developed organs, and through this they rose up to the level of human beings]. This is the creed that is strictly limited to sensory facts—a picture that, from the standpoint of natural science, would have to present itself to someone who could sit in a chair in outer space and watch the world’s evolution over millions of years.

[ 28 ] We can best understand this by taking modern human beings as our starting point, for what the outer, sensory appearance reveals about human beings is, for spiritual science, only a part of the human being. What presents itself to the senses and the intellect is only the human physical body. This physical body of the human being contains the same substances as [those] found in all of the seemingly lifeless nature surrounding us—forces that live in every mineral being. It is just that in the human being, they are composed in a much more complex way.

[ 29 ] For every living being, especially for human beings, spiritual science recognizes a second component of the total being: the etheric or life body. If the physical body were left solely to physical and chemical laws, it would disintegrate from within. In and of itself, the physical body is, physically and chemically, an impossible mixture. It is made possible only because the physical body is permeated at every moment—like a sponge saturated with water—by the etheric body, a body of force that constantly fights against the decay of the physical body. Death is the moment when the etheric body leaves the physical body. From that point on, the physical body follows the laws of physics and chemistry—it becomes a corpse and disintegrates into its constituent parts.

[ 30 ] Thus, human beings have a second aspect of their being that they share with all plants and animals, [but no longer with minerals or seemingly lifeless nature]—the etheric or life body.

[ 31 ] Then there is a third aspect of the human being. A human being does not consist solely of what lies beneath the skin—bones, muscles, nerves, and blood—but there is something living within the human being that is much closer to the soul than bones, muscles, and blood. That which a person knows intimately—because it is an experience for them in every waking moment—is a sum of joy and sorrow, desire and passion. — Everything we call the life of the soul, from the lowest desires to the highest ideal—that is their astral body. Human beings share this with animals; they do not share it with plants.

[ 32 ] Added to this is a fourth aspect of human nature—the very center of the human being—through which he is the crown of earthly creation. There is one thing that our contemporary researchers never take into account properly. There is a name that each person can say only to themselves; it is the name “I.” Anyone can say “desk” to a desk, and “table” to a table. But there is one thing that each person can say only to themselves, and that is the little word “I”! It conveys more than is usually realized. None of us can say “I” to another person; it must resound in the innermost depths of the soul itself if it is to signify what is truly meant by it. Therefore, those who knew the significance of this word called this “I” the “inexpressible name of God.” They said: When this “I” resounds within a person, then the drop of divinity, the spark of divinity within the human being, makes itself known. There, the soul engages in a dialogue with itself. Only the truly divine being has access to this realm. It gains access to the soul through the utterance of “I am.” Jean Paul recalls the moment when he first became aware of the “I am.” There, he says, he looked “into the veiled Holy of Holies of his soul.”

[ 33 ] These are the four aspects of the human being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. When the naturalistic thinker—who believes he can base his convictions purely on scientific facts—hears of these four aspects of human nature, he may laugh, [shake his head], or regard the person who comes up with such combinations of words and seeks to base knowledge on them as a fool. But they would indeed be mere combinations of words if the material processes of the body were actually responsible for the feelings, the thoughts, and the “I.” Spiritual science recognizes that it is not the outer body that is primary, but rather the “I” and the astral body; and that the etheric body and the physical body are nothing more than condensations of the human being’s spiritual essence.

[ 34 ] For the spiritual researcher, the physical body relates to the astral body just as ice relates to water. If a child comes up to us, shows us a piece of ice, and asks what it is—and we say: “Dear child, ice is water in another form!”—the child may not believe it at first; but we can help the child understand, and then the child will see it. In the same way, spiritual science shows that all material existence is [transformed], condensed spirit. Everything material has emerged from the spiritual.

[ 35 ] If we now look back at the beginning of the Earth from the perspective of spiritual science, we recognize [the following]: Everything that a hypothetical human being would see gradually coming into being as a sensory process, he would recognize as the condensation of a prior spiritual reality, as a flow out of the spirit. At the beginning of Earth’s development, we are dealing with nothing other than the spiritual. Everything material—minerals, plants, and animals, the entire sensory world with all its beings—has developed out of the spiritual.

[ 36 ] [Let us consider the state of sleep.] When we look at a sleeping person today, what do we see? First of all, the sleeping person has no inner consciousness. Pleasure and suffering, perception and imagination, and ideals sink into darkness as sleep sets in. Upon waking, they reemerge [into the person’s field of vision]. Spiritual science explains it this way: When a person sleeps, the physical and etheric bodies lie in bed; the astral body and the “I” are lifted out. Because a person can only relate to the environment through the instruments of the physical body, the astral body can only have perceptions—it can only experience pleasure and pain—when it is inside the physical body.

[ 37 ] Fichte says: It is not the eyes that see, but the “I” that perceives through them. — In a future stage of human development, the astral body will have its own [organs of perception] through which it can perceive; the initiate already possesses them. Then it will perceive the spiritual world, just as the initiate does today. While a person is asleep, the astral body cannot perceive the world around it. But it would be nonsense to say that in the evening the astral body and the human ego are destroyed, only to arise anew the next day. — No, the astral human was merely in its true home, the astral world.

[ 38 ] In spiritual science, the sleeping human being is a different being than the waking human being. We now ask: What do the astral body and the “I” do throughout the night while the human being sleeps? Everything in the world, in the cosmos, has its purpose; so too do the astral body and the “I.” Everything in the cosmos is wisely arranged. Without sleep, a being such as human beings are today could not exist. If the astral body were always within the physical body, always active through the senses—the eyes, ears, and hands—fatigue would ultimately have a debilitating effect.

[ 39 ] In ancient times, the astral body lived in the astral world. There, it was in harmony with its world. Only over the course of time has it become integrated into the physical body. Complete harmony with the physical body does not yet exist. This is expressed through fatigue. During the night, this fatigue must be dispelled. We regain strength during sleep through the work of the astral body on the physical body throughout the night. Natural science says that the human body is refreshed through physical processes. The spiritual researcher does not deny this; but the other process also takes place.

[ 40 ] Spiritual research looks beyond external facts to the spiritual causes underlying them. Let us imagine, for example, two people, one of whom slaps the other. Of the two observers, one explains: “This person experienced a particular surge of inner anger, [which is why he raised his hand to strike]; that was the cause of the slap.” — The other, however, says: “You’re a dreamer; I saw it myself: He raised his arm, moved his hand toward the other man’s face, and that is why the other man received the slap.” — The spiritual researcher, of course, does not deny this sequence of events; but he sees that something else was happening as well. This is how the spiritual researcher differs from the natural scientist.

[ 41 ] The true human being—the “I”—lives, albeit unconsciously, in a spiritual existence during the night and works on his physical body. If we trace this picture back through the course of Earth’s evolution, we see that it is constantly changing. The current ratio of daytime wakefulness to nighttime sleep has not always existed. Today, the ratio of wakefulness to sleep is two-thirds to one-third. If we go back, we come to times when human beings slept much more—spent much longer outside their physical bodies—and in distant primeval times we find that human beings slept through most of the time, spending only a very short time in the physical body. In return, however, the activity that the astral body can perform on the physical body becomes ever more powerful. At the same time, we see that the physical body is becoming simpler and simpler, while the human spirit is being called upon more and more. — If we were to go back even further, we would find that human beings do not yet have a physical body or an etheric body, but are purely astral beings.

[ 42 ] We can visualize it this way: Let’s imagine we have a body of water and, through some process, cause part of it to turn into ice. Now let’s cause [the same process to occur] so that more water turns into ice, and [so on], so that this ice becomes increasingly complex. The body of water is gradually depleted, while the ice mass becomes increasingly complex and larger, until finally all the water is gone and we are left with only a complex ice formation.

[ 43 ] Now imagine that we had not just one, but a whole lot of such water spheres, of which we treat only a portion, as just described. In another case, we let the first ice pellet fall out of the water mass right away; since it is separated, no complex ice pellet can form from it. It always remains that simple. At increasingly later stages, we let increasingly complex ice spheres fall out, [and at the next stage, even more]: Thus, alongside the most complex ice formations that arose from the entire mass of water, we have formations that fell out of the parent water at an earlier, less complex stage.

[ 44 ] Let us apply this image to the evolution of our Earth and of humankind, [but keep in mind]: At the beginning of our Earth’s evolution, there was still nothing physical or corporeal. All that existed of humankind was what now emerges from within us during sleep at night. In spiritual science, there is a principle: All other beings on Earth—[minerals, plants, animals]—came into being later than the spiritual human being. [In the beginning, there was nothing but the spiritual human being!]

[ 45 ] In the beginning, the entire Earth was like a mulberry [made up of individual berries], composed of spiritual human beings. From the astral realm, the physical realm first separated, like tiny ice balls from water. Some retained the astral [and only developed the physical at a higher stage]; for others, what initially separated from the astral substance remained at the first stage. The monera [Haeckel’s were not present before the spiritual human being, and] were humanity’s first attempt to form a physical body for the human being. Where the first physical rudiments of a physical body fell out of the astral, there the monera formed. The astral bodies, however, including the physical, developed to a higher level. Only that which fell out of the astral failed to progress.

[ 46 ] At each stage [more complex beings come into being, and so on; at each stage] certain beings remain behind, falling out of the spiritual realm. Let us now consider the beings at various stages who have fallen away and thus remained behind. These fallen beings have remained behind, while man—who was the first among all other beings—has separated everything that was initially in his spirit, so that his complex physical body came into being.

[ 47 ] If we look at a preliminary stage of humanity in the not-too-distant past, we see that human beings still had clumsy bodies, but also possessed the spiritual capacity to develop them to higher levels. However, certain bodies remain at this earlier stage; they fall out of the spiritual realm—these are the apes; others ascend—these are the humans of today.

[ 48 ] When we look back at humanity’s past, we find that the spiritual human being has been emerging from the physical body for an ever-longer period of time; it is transforming the physical body. Thus, the astral human being has gradually shaped modern humanity, ascending from the lowest form to ever more perfect structures. In the lowest beings, we should not see beings from whom we are descended, but rather human beings who have lagged behind. Nor are the other beings—plants and stones—the primordial source of the higher beings, [but rather, on the contrary, offshoots, products that have lagged behind from the same source].

[ 49 ] The question “How did the living arise from the non-living?” is therefore incorrect. It paints a completely false picture. We know that coal originated from plants. The living was there first. It was transformed into the non-living. Once upon a time, there were vast forests of ferns and horsetail-like plants on Earth. We find these again in the coal deposits. Everything we now excavate as coal was once a plant. Through the study of nature, we can see how the mineral kingdom emerged from the plant kingdom.

[ 50 ] The spiritual researcher now says: The entire mineral kingdom once emerged from the plant kingdom. At that time, the plant kingdom was structured differently and existed under entirely different conditions, since the mineral kingdom did not yet exist. Let us turn to the oldest ancestors of the mineral kingdom: granite, which consists of quartz, [feldspar], and mica schist. In distant prehistory, it arose from the solidification of the plant kingdom. Everything mineral arose from the plant kingdom, everything plant from the animal kingdom, and everything animal from the human kingdom.

[ 51 ] In the beginning, there were only spiritual beings on Earth; from them emerged the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms. The last to emerge was what is so often described as the first: the mineral kingdom.

[ 52 ] [It is a theosophical principle:] Man is the first-born of Earth’s evolution; he contains everything else within himself, and everything else has emerged from him. All the suggestions of natural science contradict this, but anyone who engages with spiritual science will come to see the truth. Even where the first mineral substance—the primordial nebula—appears, spiritual science tells us that this primordial nebula is already a creation of the spirit. We must learn to understand everything on Earth by starting from human nature.

[ 53 ] The future of the Earth, too, can only be understood by starting with human beings. [In his own human nature, man is a complex structure.] The human physical body, with the marvelous structure of the brain and the heart, reveals to us a structure imbued with wisdom. Even the smallest fragment of the femur is so wisely assembled from tiny beams that not even the most skilled engineer could replicate it. This wise structure is a condensation of the etheric body, which in turn is a condensation of the astral body. And this astral body is, in turn, a creation of the “I.”

[ 54 ] Tonight, the astral body is busy removing the fatigue-inducing substances from the physical body. In the future, the astral body will once again become creative by re-establishing a connection with the external world during the day and getting to know it. Through this, it gains knowledge and powers, which lead to heightened creativity; with the powers thus gained, [it] will continue to work and elevate the physical body to higher stages of development. The spirit created the primordial form of the physical body; it has developed the physical form to its present state and will, in the future evolution of the Earth, elevate the human form to even higher levels.

[ 55 ] The spiritual researcher [does not regard all organs as equal; he does not view them indifferently side by side, but evaluates them according to different categories. He] distinguishes among the physical organs those that are in the process of being regressed, [gradually] dying off; those that reached their peak in the past; and those that have not yet reached their peak today, which are still in the process of developing further and perfecting themselves. This is the case with the human heart. The lower organs, which are connected with human desires and passions, are on the path to withering away; but those connected with the higher, with ideal aspirations, are on the path to perfection.

[ 56 ] Let us take the heart as an example, which is a muscle that remains a mystery to anatomists and [physiologists]. All muscles have a specific structure. Those with voluntary movement, such as the muscles of the hand, have striated muscle fibers, while those with involuntary movement have smooth muscle fibers. [The digestive system, which is involuntary, also has striated muscle; only] the heart, which is an involuntary muscle, nevertheless has striated muscle. This makes it a conundrum for external research.

[ 57 ] The humanities, however, shed light on this darkness of material research, [by showing that] the heart is on its way to becoming an arbitrary muscle.

[ 58 ] In the future, human beings will regulate their hearts and heartbeats from within their souls, through their spiritual qualities. They will gain control over their bodies. Their bodies will be a much more direct expression of their spiritual qualities than they are today.

[ 59 ] We can gain an understanding of this through two phenomena already present in human psychological life. First, what occurs in a person when he faces danger. The fear he feels before an event manifests as a pallor—an effect on the blood, which withdraws from the outer parts of his body. An immediate consequence of this psychological process is what is expressed in the blood. The other—the opposite pole of this psychological expression—is found in what we call feelings of shame, where a blush of shame appears on a person’s face as the blood flows to the outer parts of the body. These are the two poles of psychological sensation.

[ 60 ] Going further, imagine how the heart reaches ever higher stages of inner development until what is at work in the blood becomes increasingly subject to the will; then we have the beginning of what spiritual science presents as the future course of human development. In the future, humanity will cast off the organs that point to the past and develop the organs of the future. We look forward to an end of the Earth in which humanity will be spiritualized, so that just as today their hands are subject to their will, they will then have their entire body subject to their will, in a way that today, when we hear of it, seems to border on the miraculous. Already today, humanity has dominion over various forces of nature. It will continue to expand its dominion by bringing itself under its own control.

[ 61 ] In the beginning of the Earth, man was spirit; but his consciousness was a dull, slumbering state of consciousness. His physical body did not yet exist. Then he separated himself from the astral body. Now the astral body will increasingly dominate the physical body and learn to spiritualize the physical more and more. As humanity evolves further, it will once again reach a spiritual level—but this time consciously. In the end, it will stand as the great king of the Earth.

[ 61 ] In the beginning of the Earth, man was spirit; but his consciousness was a dull, slumbering state of consciousness. His physical body did not yet exist. Then he separated himself from the astral body. Now the astral body will increasingly dominate the physical body and learn to spiritualize the physical more and more. As humanity evolves further, it will once again reach a spiritual level—but this time consciously. In the end, it will stand as the great king of the Earth.

[ 63 ] The eye is formed by the spirit. It now perceives the material world. The eye [as an organ] will pass away again; but what the eye has seen, the human spirit takes with it as fruit, and incorporates it into itself. Likewise, the ears as organs will pass away; but what a person has heard with them, his spirit takes with him as fruit. It is not for nothing that a person has formed these organs; when all that is material ceases, he will stand there as a spiritual being—more mature, more inward, more perfected. [One day, all that is physical will be perfected; the Earth will crumble into individual parts.] Physics, too, teaches that the Earth will one day dissolve. But what remains [for the materialist] of [the wasteland] of the Earth? If we view it in a materialistic sense, only desolate nothingness remains. In the sense of spiritual science, however, we know: Everything that has been seen, heard, and felt through these sensory organs will remain as the content of the spiritual human being, and with this content, the human being will ascend [to other, as yet unknown worlds] to a new cosmic existence.

[ 64 ] When we consider the beginning and end of Earth’s development, we simultaneously see the goal of humanity. This theory is not merely bleak, but something that instills hope, [trust], strength, and confidence in our souls, [inspiring us with courage and a zest for work. These are distant ideals; yes, but] when a person embraces these ideals in their soul, they will help us [and sustain us] in even the smallest tasks of everyday life. It is what makes us eager to work, full of vitality, and confident.

[ 65 ] We then learn that [we were there as spirit before our physical matter existed, and that] it creates the form [which it loses], but is only enriched through the form. [The spirit will emerge victorious once again.] What we receive through our eyes and ears, and experience in our soul, will be spiritualized.

[ 66 ] [We carry this shaped form of the spirit upward to ever higher levels of existence.] Those who knew this—[those who looked more deeply into the nature of the world]—also knew that human beings owe their existence to the heavens, that they were born out of the world of the stars, and that, as spirits, they are more than anything that exists on Earth.

[ 67 ] We can summarize this in Goethe’s words. He felt that human beings are born from the great cosmic world from which the stars arose. He expresses this in the words he calls the “Orphic primordial words”:

Just as on the day you were born into this world,
The sun stood in greeting to the planets,
And so you flourished immediately and ever onward
According to the law by which you came into being.
This is how you must be. You cannot escape yourself,
As the Sibyls and prophets have long said;
And no time, no power can break apart
A formed shape that develops while alive.