The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. The Formation of the Aura II

[ 1 ] Today I would like to explain the formation of the aura to you and show you how it gradually develops. You will then easily understand the rest. I will show how the aura has developed since the middle of the Lemurian race. I will provide you with a description of it so that it will be readily understandable on its own.

[ 2 ] A pivotal point for the human race occurs in the middle of the Lemurian racial evolution. Up to that point, the human body had been built up from the outside, so that by the middle of the Lemurian race, the human body was fully formed as a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. These three are present in the aura of the Lemurian ancestors. At the moment we reach the middle of the Lemurian race, a black dot becomes visible in the center of the Lemurian ancestors’ aura.

[ 3 ] If one disregards the physical body, the etheric and astral bodies remain. This is the Lemurian human being. He then acquires a black dot above his head; this is what we refer to as the human being’s true self. I will now, following on from this, describe the Atlantean human.

[ 4 ] The Atlantean human would look something like this, if this were the physical body [see sketch]. Judging by his aura, the Atlantean human looks quite different from the Lemurian human and the modern human; the Atlantean human has a black, egg-shaped form, and the astral human is the entire aura. Within the astral aura, the black point expands and becomes the shell for the inner core. The remnants of the Atlantean race still possess this peculiar aura. The spirit glows within the black point; it begins to shine. That which begins to shine is blue in itself, but appears, depending on the astral body,

[ 5 ] in various shades of blue-red, indigo, and so on. So, if you set everything else aside, something like an indigo egg will become visible. In a person who is particularly deep in thought, it appears through various green layers of thought. In a person who has very pure, abstract thoughts, it appears through a yellow layer. It also appears in a rather beautiful hue, leaning more toward violet. This feature, which the Atlantean possesses, grows larger and larger, so that in an average person of our present race, this black egg coincides with the outline of the astral body.

[ 6 ] Modern man maintains a rough balance. He engages his mind to the extent that it interests him, and he controls his desires and instincts with his intellect. Our entire external culture is, in essence, designed to satisfy urges, instincts, and passions. This is expressed by the fact that your astral aura coincides with your mental aura.

[ 7 ] If you consider a more highly developed human being in the current stage of evolution, the situation is somewhat different. In that case, the mental aura extends beyond the astral aura; it protrudes slightly. The “I” extends even further beyond that.

[ 8 ] In the case of a Chela or an Adept, the astral body is in the center, followed by the mental body, and only then the black egg, which is the “I”; thus, the astral body is surrounded by the mental body and is in turn enveloped by the “I,” so that the astral body is used for mental purposes.

[ 9 ] The “I” is a point at the moment of its emergence in the midst of the Lemurian race. The “I” is now the outermost shell. The brain is increasingly becoming the center of the entire organism.

[ 10 ] In the first race of our Aryan population, the actual focal point in the mental aura is still located slightly above the physical brain and only gradually migrates into the physical brain. Those who incarnated as adepts within the Atlantean race were endowed with a significantly higher intuition—an intuition that was still impersonal. This intuition then gradually moved into the being, and it is only later that the spiritual emerges once again from the personal.

[ 11 ] The adepts of the fourth—that is, the Atlantean—race were still visionaries inspired by God; those of the sixth race will be visionaries inspired by themselves!

[ 12 ] That is the difference between the beginnings of our own race [that is, the fifth] and us! This also explains why, at the beginning of the theosophical development or movement, the adepts—who are our adepts—were so difficult to understand; why they themselves felt that they were making themselves so hard to understand. This was because the adepts who belonged to the earliest population led a much more spiritual life, one that had not yet descended into mere intellectual understanding. Westerners want to understand. Therefore, when you read the Esoteric Doctrine, you will find the passage where the Master says: “You, with your Western judgment, find it so difficult to understand!”

[ 13 ] Everything in the aura is visible to the seer—absolutely everything. The only thing he does not see—and which no seer can see—is the essential nature of the darkness, which signifies the “I,” whether it be the black dot or the black ring. What is visible is what has been formed from the outside and what has been formed from within. That which constitutes a person’s true “I” is invisible to any seer! One can trace exactly what nature has produced as the “I,” but one can never perceive it in its self-sufficiency. For everyone, even for the highest seer, there is a dark point within the human being. Just as one cannot say “I” to another person, so too can we not see what constitutes the “I” in another’s aura.

[ 14 ] A bit about consciousness: You are made up entirely of cells. Every cell has a cellular consciousness. Your consciousness is the sum total of these cellular consciousnesses. The consciousness I am speaking of here will never merge with another. Just as you incarnate in a cellular body, so will a higher consciousness incarnate in what arises from the various egos. In every session, the totality of the participants serves as the body for a higher being. The true ego, therefore, cannot be discerned.

[ 15 ] In the case of the Lemurian, there is therefore a dark spot; in the Atlantean, there is a circle or an egg-shaped form within the aura; in our case, this black area roughly coincides with the boundary of the aura; in the adept, the mental aura extends beyond the astral aura, and where it does so, it becomes radiant in the most beautiful sense; it then takes on shades of blue or violet. The rose-red is the truly creative aspect—the point where the ego begins to spiritually transform the world through creative forces, and where the adept begins to become a true planetary spirit.

[ 16 ] And now a word about what is actually meant by so-called inanimate nature: Even the higher spirits have an ego. If a spirit is so great that it creates a solar system, then it is not to be found in the sun, but at the outermost edge of the system. The solar system thus appears to be inanimate because the “I” has already extended itself outward. If we could reach the boundary of the solar system, we would find the ego there. That is the esoteric reason for the blue of the sky! Outer space appears blue because it is nothing other than the black shell on the outside! And outside this black shell, the spirit appears through the various shells in regions of different colors! So when you look at it, it must appear to you as if you were seeing a black surface through a glass that is illuminated; then it appears blue to you. For example, the center of a flame also appears blue. Where the flame is blue, there is a dark space; nothing burns there. This is easy to see in a candle flame; but in truth, it is black. Every flame is bright. The blue of the sky must truly be referred to as a “firmament,” as Genesis says; this is to be understood as literally as possible, just as the general Spirit exists outside the “I.” Nothing in the world is without spirit; there is only spirit that has not yet become the “I”; within is the spirit with which the “I” has already filled itself. The “I” is the boundary between the spirit from without and the spirit that lives within the human being. This “solid” is the “I” of the solar system in question.

[ 17 ] Genesis is an inspired book; it is not something devised by humans. As long as the mental aspect had not yet entered the human mind, inspiration came from outside. And we call the books inspired from outside the content of the primordial revelations. These therefore all agree with one another when we look beyond the veil that humans have drawn over them. We can turn to the Indian books or to the traditions of the decadent tribes in America: they agree because they were received as revelations. This is something known not only to occultists but which has evidently always been recognized. Herder also saw through this. The nineteenth century, which was primarily concerned with criticism, judges these things according to human opinions. The correct standpoint toward these books is the one from which it can be said: If we do not understand these books, it is not necessarily the book that is absurd, but we ourselves who may be absurd.

[ 18 ] I would now like to return to the aura of advanced human beings, such as Plato in ancient Greece. The level of development that Plato attained will not be reached by the average people of the present race until the next cycle; that is why people like Plato are called “artificial fifth-cycle beings.” However, they also differ significantly from the rest of humanity. When the people of the present race reach the fifth round, their bodies will no longer be physical bodies as they are now, but astral bodies; thus, the difference will still exist. Plato, in his physical body of the fourth round, was already what other people will only be able to become in their astral bodies of the fifth round!

[ 19 ] Plato, then, has been in the physical body of the fourth round—a state in which other people will be in the astral body of the fifth round! This entails a significant difference in the progress of evolution. As a result, when earthly evolution is complete, Plato will enter a state entirely different from that of the others. In the fifth round, he may be a Buddha, and in the sixth, he will stand at an even higher level! Let’s go back once more and take a look at Plato. During the fourth round, he has already accomplished with his physical brain what the average person will be able to accomplish in the fifth round with their astral brain. This will enable him to exert a corresponding influence in the next round; he has thereby acquired an ability that others do not yet possess: namely, the ability to exert an influence on the physical brain!

[ 20 ] It is just as if an engineer were suddenly transported to a primitive tribe; there, with his artistic skills and knowledge, he would be able to transform everything to a much greater degree; he would be able to serve as a teacher to this primitive tribe. While someone who grows up within the primitive tribe can only advance its development a small step further, the one who enters the tribe with a high level of development will be able to take the tribe much further. A highly developed individual will, of course, not intervene in the early stages of development, but only later, once development has progressed to a certain point. That is the task of advanced human beings! They will move on to the next epoch of development, but they will wait until they can intervene!

[ 21 ] [Presumably from the Q&A:]

[ 22 ] By “reverse effect,” I meant that he has acquired abilities that others do not have. The others are bound to the physical brain, and in turn bound to a single brain. In the sixth round, he will act upon the astral brain, and in the seventh round upon the mental brain, so that he can exert a retroactive influence on the earlier brains and guide them from outside.

[ 23 ] The effectiveness of the Pitri should therefore be understood as something similar to the way in which the former can participate in the construction of the new world body. Those who have completed their development in the normal way—who have become true human beings—will be able to contribute to this construction from the outside accordingly.

[ 24 ] How far have we come at the end of the seventh round? Far enough that we can rebuild from the outside everything that the spirit has built from within. So when we find new cosmic dust, we will immediately build a body that corresponds to our stage of development. We will build the “human beings” of future stages of development! But those who have fallen behind, who have not progressed that far, will have to build the lowest forms; they will accordingly be the ones who, as it were, build the walls of the new world system from the bottom up, and the more advanced ones will step in where there is work for them to do.

[ 25 ] The ego within us can never be lost; it merely transforms. At present, it thinks, and that is the highest ability it possesses today. We will once again animate the next beings, but not with manasic egos, rather with higher egos. We entrust the thoughts of the more advanced to the formation of a new sun; we place them on the altar of the common good. The division of a people into two parts is always preceded by a struggle of the Dhyan-Chohans on higher planes.