The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. On the Formation of Planetary Systems

[ 1 ] First, the purely physical theory that is usually taught in our schools. According to the Kant-Laplace theory, it is assumed that where our solar system is today, there was once a thin, gaseous nebula, similar to the mass of the Orion Nebula, so that all the planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Earth—were, by analogy, like simple fat globules, like fat globules floating on water.

[ 2 ] [Dr. Steiner takes a sheet of paper that is as large in diameter as a fat globule, pushes it through the fat globule, which is then split into two parts. He then inserts a needle as an axis, places it in water, and sets it in rotation. It becomes a lens, and then droplets of fat split off and continue to move around the original drop.]

[ 3 ] Kepler replaced circular motion with elliptical motion. All physical theories are based on analogies. There is no other proof. As long as we remain within the realm of physical matter, we can certainly extrapolate the process we have described to a larger scale and accept it. If someone back then had sat outside the process of formation to observe it, they would have seen nothing else.

[ 4 ] But suppose that something invisible to the physical eye were to become visible in what precedes and follows to one who begins to see clearly; that person might say: Now something is present, at the very moment when the astral condenses into the physical. He completely disregards what came before. And that is the secret: that everything else is eliminated and only the physical remains. Such a physical representation cannot be refuted. It is a partial truth. Kant’s primordial nebula could never have existed if it had not condensed from something else. Can you imagine organic germs separating out from a mass of gas? From this you can see that within what Kant describes, there must have been something else that Kant does not describe. If we trace the states of our Earth back: Today it is solid; before that, it was liquid; and before that, it was gaseous. But before it took on a gaseous form, it was an astral sphere.

[ 5 ] And physical theory cannot describe this. You must imagine the space where the Earth is now as filled with astral matter. At a certain point in time, Kama is divided into two poles. One pole is the physical-material, the other the Kama-Manasic. Now he sees the material emerging, as it were, out of nothing.

[ 6 ] He cannot perceive the Kama-Manasic realm. This realm gives rise to human beings, and human beings, in turn, give rise to animals as offshoots. The astral Earth must be preceded by something else. It is preceded by a mental Earth, the rupi-mental Earth. But when the rupi-mental Earth came into being, the rupi-mental Sun, Venus, and so on—the entire planetary system—came into being at the same time. All the planets became rupi-mental simultaneously. The Sun was the original source. The first division that arises is developed from the Arupic. The separation of the planets takes place in such a way that it is a purely mental process. The Dhyan-Chohans are the mental spirits of the planets.

[ 7 ] Let us consider Jupiter. The Arupic Mental Sun has become the Rupic Mental Mercury, and so on. We regard all processes related to the planetary system as rupic-mental. Everything that enters the individual planets is astral. The astral-earthly realm, therefore, has nothing to do with any other planet. In contrast, we share the rupic-mental sphere with all other planets. The kamic entities are those that belong solely to our physical existence. The observer sitting in the chair could only see the bodies begin to glow once they have entered the physical-material realm. A Christian who imagines God as a man with a long beard is spiritually superstitious. Anyone who believes in the Kant-Laplace theory, we call materialistically superstitious.

[ 8 ] If we follow the lunar epoch, we are dealing with a physical Moon. It becomes astral. Let’s take the Earth. It was first arupic, then rupic, then mental, astral, physical, then astral again, rupic, and arupic. We have already gone through this.

[ 9 ] The Pitri nature is astral, and so on. In the astral state, we would never be able to find the passage from one planet to another. Only when we rise to the mental plane and, from there, reach the rupic-mental, which still belongs to the same planet, and proceed to the formless, only then can we pass into Pralaya and ascend to another planet. We must reach the arupic stage in order to move from one planet to another.

[ 10 ] I will now describe the process by which the Earth formed from the Moon. In today’s physics textbooks, this process is described in very general terms. The conditions are described there as being similar to those on our Earth. Our Earth completes one orbit in 24 hours. The Moon completes the same orbit in 29 days. That is one lunar month. It orbits once around its axis. Its day lasts half of 29 days = 14¾ days of day and 14¾ days of night. If the Sun shone for that long, it would generate so much heat that any lead present on the Moon would completely melt at noon and flow across the Moon’s surface. Lead could never remain solid for a single day. All other metals would be liquid. And if we consider the night, it would have become so cold before sunset that the thermometer would read 150 degrees below freezing. Anything resembling earthly life would perish during every lunar night. You see, the conditions are radically different when viewed from a purely physical perspective.

[ 11 ] Now I want to show you what conditions were like before our Earth came into being. The body that is now the Moon is not the Moon we speak of in occult science. It was a world body that no longer exists today, on which the ancestral souls lived—souls who had developed a highly evolved Kama nature, who were long-haired, gigantic in stature, and in certain races even resembled a Nikelmann [...], moist; the ancestors were enclosed within the germ. Their physical form had become astral; from there, rupic, arupic, then germ [...] and from there over to Earth. The seeds were fertilized by Kama-Manas. Then the astral formed, and then we had the astral Earth.

[ 12 ] Within this line were the Pitris, who had essentially already merged with Kama-Manas, and most of the Pitris had merged with such Kama-Manas seeds. Alongside them, however, were a number of Pitris who had not reached their full level of development during the earlier lunar epoch. Not those who had skipped over the process of development or who were disrupting it, but those who had fallen behind, who had not attained that level of development. They were present with the entire sum of kamic force belonging to them, which was of no use to the others. This was separated out, and the sphere that existed elongated, forming an ellipsoid, an egg-shaped form.

[ 13 ] In this form, two solid cores formed—one large and one small. And now the small sphere and the large sphere separated. The Moon lost its astral shell—a mass of dross containing only those kamic forces that are more firmly embedded in its mass than the magnetic forces are in a magnet. Lunar magnetism is a highly condensed kamic force. The outer layer then also condensed and became solid earth. This process of ejection takes place high up in the astral state. The Rupa Earth differs from the earlier moon in that the seed of Kama-Manas is added. The fact that we do not make moral demands of mineral cosmic bodies is based on the fact that their astral bodies have come to rest. One would not hold Vesuvius responsible for overflowing and spewing fire.

[ 14 ] The more a person has burned away the [Kama], the more they resemble a star. The astral body will no longer appear as a turbulent battlefield between the astral and the physical, but will find uniform peace within itself. The astralization of the astral body consists precisely in the burning away of [Kama].