The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophical Cosmology III

[ 1 ] Eight days ago, I attempted to explain the way of thinking—so foreign to the West—through which the theosophist arrives at his insights and understanding of the cosmos. The sketchy nature of these lectures prevents me from discussing theosophical cosmology in full detail. However, I will attempt today to at least give you, in narrative form, a picture of the origin of the world as it underlies Theosophy. I ask those who have scientific expectations to bear in mind that it is, of course, not possible for me to provide, within the brevity of three lectures, any scientifically sound justification for what I will say today. Anyone who wishes to have such a scientific justification will find it in a later series of lectures, where I will speak in greater detail on this subject. Furthermore, a second volume of my *Theosophy*, which will be published soon, will also deal with cosmology.

[ 2 ] First of all, let me start with an important concept that is, in essence, very simple, but which anyone who wishes to understand evolution in the theosophical sense must keep in mind. When we speak of evolution in the broadest sense, we do not mean merely the emergence of animal or plant life from another form of life; rather, we refer to the great transformations within this universe, and we include among these the origin of matter—matter in the true sense of the word—which we can perceive today through our physical senses.

[ 3 ] Last time we spoke about how we can distinguish seven successive stages in the evolutionary history of our planet, and I also described these to you, at least in general terms. You must therefore imagine that our Earth, as it were, passes through seven stages—which we call rounds—in a rhythmic sequence. Everything that exists and lives on our Earth today was also present before our present Earth came into being; but it existed in a kind of embryonic state, just as the entire plant is already present in the seed, so to speak, lying dormant in the seed before it takes shape in the outer world. In Theosophy, we refer to such a dormant state of all human beings as a “Pralaya.” In contrast, the state in which everything awakens to life, gradually emerges, and progresses from its beginnings to perfection, to a climax, is called a “Manvantara.” Once the state of perfection has been reached, a Pralaya—a state of sleep—follows once more, and this is in turn followed by a state of waking and growth. Thus, the planet passes through this sequence of states seven times, awakening seven times to a new cycle of life. The time between one Manvantara and the next therefore elapses in a state in which everything that lives and thrives on our Earth is, as it were, asleep. But this is not a sleep that can be compared to ordinary human sleep. In ordinary human sleep, only the human mind and senses are suspended, yet you can still observe the person’s physical life. You must imagine the Earth’s state of sleep quite differently. The fact is that during this state of sleep, nothing at all can be seen of any being on our Earth. Only to the open eye of the most highly developed seer—the so-called Dangma—would this state of the Earth be perceptible. This state is indescribable with our words, for our words are not suited to this kind of existence. I cannot find words for this state in any language. Therefore, to evoke an idea of this state, the developed seer says something entirely different. He says: Imagine a plant. You see this plant. Now imagine a kind of plaster cast of this plant, but such that everything that constitutes the plant is hollow—empty space—and the plaster mass surrounds it. Now suppose that everything that is plaster were spiritual and perceptible only to certain sensory perceptions. The one who can see the plant cannot simultaneously see the plaster cast—that is, the negative of the plant. This is roughly how what the developed seer is able to perceive of the Earth in its Pralaya sleep would behave. The Earth is not there. It is the hollow, the hollow form; it is as if it were in a vast, mighty sea of the highest spiritual beings, blurring in all directions and gradually fading away, from which the very existence of the Earth itself flows, as it were.

[ 4 ] Now something begins to take shape within this cavity, but what is emerging there is still imperceptible to the physical eye; it is perceptible only to a highly developed seer who can consciously move within the realm of the Devachan plane. One who possesses this vision would, at the beginning of earthly existence, see a sphere in space—a purely spiritual sphere in which everything exists only spiritually and which would be perceptible only to the Devachanic seer’s eye. Every time before a new cycle begins, our Earth is in such a spiritual state. When it awakens from the sleep of Pralaya, it awakens to such a sphere. The Devachanic seer sees it bathed in a wondrous reddish glow. Even to the astral seer, the sphere is not visible. Yet the sphere already contains everything that will later become the Earth. Even the densest bodies are already contained within this sphere.

[ 5 ] How are we supposed to picture this? We can understand it through a simple process. Imagine a container filled with water. Water is a liquid. If you lower the temperature, the water will freeze into ice. You are looking at the same thing as before—ice is nothing other than water, just in a different form. If you raise the temperature, the ice turns back into water, and with even further heating, it turns into steam. In the same way, you can imagine that all materiality arises from the spiritual through condensation. The spiritual sphere—visible only to the developed clairvoyant eye—becomes denser and denser after passing through a small pralaya. It then becomes visible even to a less developed clairvoyant eye. Then comes another sort of brief state of sleep, and afterward the entire sphere appears to us once more in a more condensed state; now this sphere is visible to the astral eye—that is, to those whose senses are open on the astral plane. Another state of pralaya follows, and the sphere reappears, this time as physical matter that has become quite dense. Only now can physical eyes see it, physical ears hear it, and physical hands grasp it. This is the fourth state. Afterward, another brief Pralaya occurs. The state dissolves once more, and an astral sphere reappears before us, but this time with much more highly developed beings. A similar state occurs in the sixth round, which is again visible only to the Devachanic seer. This is followed by another Pralaya and then a state visible only to the highest seer’s eye. Then comes the fading away, even for the Dangma. Now a great Pralaya follows, and then the entire process begins to repeat itself. This happens seven times. Thus the Earth transforms from the lowest to the highest.

[ 6 ] Let us now follow the first round. The best way to study it is to understand what exists on our Earth where it is at its densest. In the first round, there are still no mineral forms, nor any physical forces of nature, nor any chemical forces. The Earth has carried out its developmental work thus far solely to lay the foundation for physical existence; it has laid these foundations to prepare for physical existence in the fourth round. Here, our Earth appears as a fiery mass, of such an immensely high temperature that none of our present substances could have the form they now possess within it. All substances are intermingled in this primordial fiery mass—allow me to use this trivial term—in a uniform, undifferentiated matter. Theosophy states: The Earth is in a state of fire. — This does not, however, refer to an ordinary fire, but to a fire of a higher, spiritual nature. There are no chemical elements present yet. But what lies within this matter is already active. Two kinds of spiritual beings are active within it: those we call “Dhyani Chohans” and those beings who have not yet descended into physical materiality—some of whom possess only a spiritual body, while others are enveloped in astral matter—and who flow through the fiery matter with immense speed. We see there a continuous arising and passing away of formless shapes, including forms that already resemble what will later exist on Earth. What continually arises and passes away appears like a kind of stencil. Something bubbles up that reminds us of the shapes of future crystals and future plants; indeed, even something that already takes on human forms and then disperses again. The human beings who would later incarnate lived within this fire, shaping their bodies and preparing them. This is how this state of the Earth’s first round appears to us. Then follows the transition of this fiery, flowing Earth into a state of slumber.

[ 7 ] The second round begins in the same spiritual way. Let us again consider the Earth where it is at its densest. Now this state has a completely different form than before. It now has a form already known to modern physics; today’s physicists call it “ether.” Ether is finer than our present-day gases, but denser than the Earth was in the previous round. Within this very fine matter, what we call chemical elements take shape. You can find this second stage alluded to in a wonderfully beautiful way in all religious texts, where it is said that the divine beings arranged everything according to measure, number, and weight. What was once disordered now organized itself into chemical elements, and these were ordered through number. The chemist will understand me, for he is familiar with the regular periodic table of elements. Thus, matter came to exist in specific ratios of measure and number to one another after it had, as matter, assumed a certain density—an ethereal form. At this stage, the individual substances still have nothing to do with one another. They remain alien to one another. Only now, as matter differentiates, do we see the most wondrous forms taking shape—forms that remind us of those that will come later, though they are not yet permanently fixed: star-shaped forms, angular forms, tetrahedrons, polyhedrons, round forms, and so on. Here, the forms that will later appear in the natural kingdom are foreshadowed. Just as the crystal forms were prefigured in the first round, so now, in the second round, the plant kingdom is prefigured. Then the whole process subsides again; the astral and devachanic realms pass through a state of Pralaya once more and then reappear in the third round.

[ 8 ] When we consider the physical state in the third round, we find that matter is already in a significantly different state. It is not yet organized into air and water, but rather takes on a kind of mist-like or vapor-like form. No longer in the form of ether, but rather like a kind of water vapor, mist, or the cloud formations we see today—this is how we would have to imagine the Earth at this third stage. And within these mist-like formations—which we find preserved in ancient legends—the legends of Nebelheim and Niflheim illustrate this state—matter appears to us in a different form, no longer ordered according to number but endowed with forces. The occult researcher speaks here of the law of elective affinities. Chemical substances are governed by the law of elective affinity. But now, in the third round, a force emerges that enables the small to become larger, to expand. Substances can organize and energize themselves from within. Not only do the beginnings of plant life, which we encountered in the second round, appear, but growth is now possible. The first animal formations appear, which would seem highly grotesque to us today. Enormous, colossal forms took shape of their own accord from this misty mass. For the occultist, there is a grain of truth in looking up at the clouds and seeing that one cloud resembles a camel and another a horse. In this third round, the beings are nebulous forms that reproduce by one transforming into another, one emerging from another, just like lower cellular organisms, which are a remnant of this process. These animal bodies, which arose from the nebula, can now provide the first foundation for those individualities that have come over from earlier worlds to find a body. Now the human being can incarnate; he finds a vessel that allows him to express himself, though at first in an imperfect, primitive, and clumsy manner. Failed incarnations are also possible. One can say that during the third round, beings existed on Earth—intermediate beings between humans and animals—in which humans did not feel entirely at ease, but in which they were nevertheless able to incarnate.

[ 9 ] Now another Pralaya is coming, followed by the fourth cycle. This is the cycle to which we ourselves belong today. The Earth thus first passed through the Devachanic state, then descended through the astral and etheric states, and finally reached the physical state that we have now attained. During the first round, the foundation for the mineral kingdom was laid; during the second round, the foundation for the plant kingdom was laid; and during the third round, the possibility arose for animal forms to emerge. And now, during the fourth round, human beings acquire the ability to assume the form they have today.

[ 10 ] Let us examine the state of our physical Earth—our current round—a little more closely. The state of the Earth at this fourth stage must be described as much denser than the states in earlier rounds. First there was a fiery state, then a misty one, then one intermediate between air and water. Now, however, at the beginning of the fourth round, we have a kind of gelatinous matter, similar to egg white. The entire Earth was in this state at the beginning of the fourth round. Gradually, however, everything condensed, and what we know today on Earth as matter is nothing other than the condensed, originally gelatinous matter—just as ice is condensed water. At the beginning of this fourth round, all beings were constituted in such a way that they could live within this swelling matter. Human beings had a form that was already similar to that of today, but they were still in a completely dull state of consciousness, comparable to the state of a dreaming person. They drifted through their existence in a kind of sleep-like consciousness; they still lacked the spirit. Let us examine this state a little more closely. Human beings were thus already possible within this bubbling matter. We call the people of this first race “dream-people.” It is difficult to provide a description of the people of the first race. This state was followed by another, in which matter continued to condense and separated into a more spiritual and a more physical materiality, as it were, into a North Pole and a South Pole. I ask you, however, to bear in mind the difference between the occult view and the common understanding of Darwinism. So in this described state of the Earth, we originally had human beings present, and we had the plant kingdom; the animal kingdom was also present, but in forms that did not yet exhibit sexual reproduction or warm blood. These beings were not yet capable of producing sounds from within. Human beings themselves were still mute. And they could not yet think; they could not even form vague concepts. The spirit had not yet entered the body. In the next, the second race, matter divides into two poles. Humans, as it were, extract the matter that is useful to them and separate out the less useful matter, from which the higher animals develop as a kind of offshoot. The lower animal species are already similar to the forms of today’s mollusks; even fish-like forms are already developing.

[ 11 ] Humanity continues to evolve to ever higher levels, and at the third stage of racial development, it once again sheds matter that it cannot transform into a vehicle for higher consciousness. They release it again as material for the animals, which now resemble amphibians of enormous size. They are described to us in the fables and myths of various peoples as flying dragons and so on. Even at this stage, no being that has evolved yet engages in sexual reproduction. It is not until the middle of the third race—in the middle of the Lemurian epoch—that the first signs of this appear. The setting for these events was in Lemuria, in the region of Hinterindia in the Indian Ocean.

[ 12 ] In the middle of the Lemurian era, the great event took place that made humans truly human. Among the human beings who had come over from earlier planetary states, not all were at the same stage of development. Those who had already achieved normal development on the Nebular Earth during the earlier cycle were able to incarnate during the third race. Among these, however, there were a number who had already attained a higher stage; these were unable to incarnate at all during the third round. In every cycle, some people develop to a normal level, while others reach a stage that goes beyond it. Masters are those who have advanced beyond the normal level. They are highly evolved individuals. These highly evolved individuals, who have already advanced beyond the normal level, are called Solar Pitris in Theosophy. They had already attained a higher spirituality, but they were just as unable to incarnate in the bodies of the humans of that time as modern humans would be unable to incarnate in plant forms. They waited for further development until the right time had come and their first true incarnation could take place in the fourth race. Only then were these highly developed individualities—the Solarpitris—able to take possession of the existing forms. A spiritually highly developed humanity emerged. The legends and myths recount that there were, at that time, personalities who towered far above their fellow human beings. Individualities such as Prometheus, the Rishis of India—the Fire Rishis—who then became the true leaders of humanity, the Manus, who gave laws to later generations of humans. Only these Solarpitris were able to incarnate as adepts.

[ 13 ] I have told you that at the beginning of the fourth round, there was no sexual differentiation. It was not until the Lemurian era that the separation of the sexes occurred. This is what first made incarnation possible—the inhabiting of a body that had not existed before. Previously, one being emerged from another. With the separation of the sexes in the middle of the Lemurian era, birth and death came into being, and with them the possibility of karma took effect. Human beings could incur guilt. Everything we know as “human” originated at that time.

[ 14 ] The continent of Lemuria was destroyed by fire-like catastrophes, and the Atlantic continent then emerged on the floor of what is now the Atlantic Ocean. During the Atlantic era, another important event occurred, which I brought to your attention when I spoke about the Feast of Pentecost. I said then that, with the exception of the Solar Pitris, all beings lived in a low spiritual state. Only certain bodies were capable of receiving the Solar Pitris. The other bodies would have offered these beings only the possibility of living in a state of dull consciousness. People devoid of feeling would have emerged had the bodies of that time been used. The Pitris therefore waited until certain animal forms had developed further. On the one hand, these forms had sunk deeper into the realm of instinctual life, but on the other hand, this had created the preconditions for the later development of a brain. Matter had differentiated into nervous matter and sexual matter. It was within this degraded matter that those Pitris who had waited for this later state then incarnated. This is what religion has referred to as the Fall of humanity: the descent into matter of a lower nature. Had this not occurred, they would all have remained in a much less conscious state. They would not have been capable of the clear life of thought that we have today, but would have remained in a much more dull state. They paid for this by allowing their bodies to deteriorate on the one hand, in order to refine them into brain matter on the other, so as to attain a higher level of consciousness. This enabled them even back then to rise to a certain spiritual height. A notable result of the development of the Atlantean race was the formation of a phenomenal memory.

[ 15 ] After Atlantis had sunk—by water—our present fifth race developed as its later continuation; as a special achievement, it has developed the synthetic mind, which enables it to bring art and science to the highest levels of development, something that was not possible before. In the fifth subrace of the fourth round, humanity reaches a pinnacle: mastery by the spirit, which has descended into matter so that it may now be carried upward again to ever higher and higher levels. We have seen how the cosmos has developed in a rhythmic sequence of stages up to the point where we stand today. In the earlier rounds, the following were developed:

1. the mineral kingdom,
2. the plant kingdom,
3. the animal kingdom, and then
4. humans.

[ 16 ] Theosophical cosmology is a self-contained system that has sprung from the wisdom of the most highly developed seers. If I had just a little more time, I could show you how certain scientific facts in particular point to this worldview from a scientific perspective. Let us consider, for example, Haeckel’s famous evolutionary trees, in which all development is interpreted in purely material terms. But if, instead of matter—instead of the crystal—you take the spiritual states as described by Theosophy, then you can construct the evolutionary trees just as Haeckel did—only the explanation is different.

[ 17 ] So that you do not confuse what I have said with what is described in some theosophical books as the various astral or physical states, I would like to point out the following: This development is often described as if these were distinct, parallel states; You find spheres placed side by side, so that it seems as if life were passing from one sphere to another. In reality, however, there is only a single sphere, and only its state changes. It is always the same sphere that undergoes the various metamorphoses: mental, astral, physical, and so on.

[ 18 ] We have thus seen that the starting point we have taken from Goethe’s words is entirely justified—the words that, in the end, it is indeed the human being who appears, so to speak, as the goal, as the task of the earthly planet. The occultist knows that every planet has its specific task. Nothing in the entire cosmos is random. Ensuring that what emerges for us humans achieves its goal—that is the task of physical development. You would not find a human being like the human of today on any other planet. Beings—yes, but not humans. The Earth exists so that the human being could emerge as a self-conscious being. Throughout the first four cycles, the kingdoms of nature have developed so that, in the fourth cycle, human beings could become self-conscious beings capable of consciously reflecting themselves in the body. Now they will continue to ascend to higher states, of which very few can form a true conception. In the next, the fifth cycle, the mineral kingdom will disappear entirely. All mineral matter will have been transformed into plant matter. Everything will live within the plant consciousness—to speak in occult terms. Then the plant kingdom will also reach its completion, and in the next cycle, the animal kingdom will form the lowest kingdom. In the seventh cycle, humanity will have reached the pinnacle of its development. There, humanity will become what it is meant to become in its planetary evolution.

[ 19 ] Anyone who understands this can, in turn, gain a deep insight into religious texts. There was a time when people believed in religious texts like children. Then came the Age of Enlightenment, when nothing was believed anymore, and now a time is coming when people will once again learn to understand the images preserved for us in religious texts, fairy tales, and fables. Thus, we have the seven cycles as the seven days of creation in the Bible. The first three days of creation have passed; we are now in the fourth day of creation, and the last three days of creation are yet to come. The first three days of creation in Genesis represent the past cycles, while the last three hint at what is to come in the future. Properly understood, Moses’ description of the fourth day of creation means that we are living in the fourth round; he also describes the fourth day of creation in particular detail. That is why you will also find a twofold creation in Genesis. Those who judge the Bible solely with their intellect can never understand this. The human being of the seventh day of creation has not yet been created. The fact that man is made of clay and loam is a symbol of our fourth round. The dual creation tells us, in figurative form, about the created world, about the state in which we now find ourselves, and about the state at the end of the seventh round. When we view what has been handed down through the Bible in this way, a meaning suddenly emerges from these ancient texts that we could not have anticipated before. Now humanity will finally see that there is such a profound meaning in these texts that one must almost become a different person to understand it. It is necessary that, in the present age, the lofty, spiritual meaning of this oldest text be made accessible to people once again, and that is the task of the Theosophical Movement. It does not condemn the materialism of our time, because it considers this to be a necessary phase. But it works to help people rediscover the spiritual meaning of these texts. Let us continue to work on this in the coming winter as well. Today’s lecture is the last in this series. Our Monday meetings, however, will continue. Every Monday at eight o’clock in the evening, we will meet here again.