The Rudolf Steiner Archive

22. Genesis II

[ 1 ] Today I would like to speak once again about Genesis, but from a different perspective. I would like to introduce a few concepts that will enable you to gradually take Genesis literally. To do so, I would first like to refer to a passage in the Epistle of John. There you will find a very interesting passage in the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of John, verses 7–8:

There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are in agreement. [1 John 5:7-8]

[ 2 ] In these words, you have a distinction between the three higher and the three lower principles, as they are to be understood in the context of Christian esotericism and Gnosticism. That is the Father, Atma; that is the Word, Budhi, the Creative Principle, the Spirit that permeates the entire world; and thirdly, Manas or Mahat, the Holy Spirit. Holy is the Word, which means: not yet subject to the physical. Atma, Budhi, and Manas refer to these three who beget in heaven.

[ 3 ] Added to these three are the three spiritual elements within the human being. Throughout Jewish Kabbalah—going all the way back to the original Books of Moses—and in Christian esotericism, these spiritual elements are: blood, water, and spirit. One must first be clear about what Jewish esotericism means by “blood.” It is the lowest level of the soul, what we in Theosophy call the astral—not our physical blood. Jewish esotericism holds that the movement of blood originates from the astral body, and this is correct. Jewish esotericism refers to “blood” as all influences that not only pass directly through the soul but also have a physical effect. It is the active, driving force. We simply call the red fluid that flows through the body “blood.”

[ 4 ] The second is “water.” In every kind of secret language, “Kama” always refers to water. It represents feelings, passions, desires, and so on. And now I will tell you why it is called “water.” You must first familiarize yourselves with the idea that people today are accustomed to imagining things in a much more materialistic way than was the case in earlier times. If you imagine an ancient Kabbalist, he saw in this water not merely the flowing element, but a parable. And he arrived at this conclusion in the following way. He said to himself: In the water live those animals that we must count among the primordial ones. From the liquid element, the animal realm originally emerged: sea creatures, jellyfish, amphibians. These then emerged from the water onto land. Nowhere did passions and feelings arise except from water. Only later did the land emerge, and with it arose that which is more highly organized. The soul, the feeling of pleasure and displeasure—these emerged from the water. Water was the element that gives rise to pleasure and displeasure in human beings. That is why he called water the source of what is pleasure and displeasure.

[ 5 ] We distinguish the lower soul, which causes the blood to surge. The blood is the true, deeper soul. What we experience as pleasure and displeasure—the true inner pains—he calls “water,” because he derives this element of the soul from water.

[ 6 ] Next comes the thinking soul, the spirit. So we have the sensory soul, the inner soul; then the intellectual soul, the soul of reason; and third, the conscious soul, the higher soul—the part of the soul into which the spirit shines.

[ 7 ] Now the Jew said to himself: Where the soul springs forth, there is the soul. The Jew therefore saw in the sea—and everywhere where the liquid element was—a metaphor for the soul. It is only because people have lost the habit of seeing the soul that they see the external, physical water.

[ 8 ] Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus can provide us with further insight here.

Now there was a man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can perform the signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. [John 3:1–8]

[ 9 ] This is how Jesus sought to make it clear to him. Because Nicodemus was, at that time, a minor Mahatma—a master—Jesus said to him: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” A person is born of the mother through the blood; he must be born again of water and the Spirit. What is born of the blood is blood; what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

But Nicodemus said to him, “How can this be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you a teacher in Israel and do not know these things?” [John 3:9–10]

[ 10 ] Now we can also take the first words of Genesis in their proper sense. The first verse can be translated as follows:

In the very beginning, God created His karma as heaven and earth.

[ 11 ] The concept of “creation,” as we understand it today, does not exist in ancient languages. “Creare” is Latin and means “to create,” but it derives from the Sanskrit word “Kr,” which in turn comes from “karma”; it therefore means “to create,” and the sentence essentially means:

God's karma begins to flow.

[ 12 ] The evolution of our Earth was preceded by a phase in which the world of Kama—the world of instincts, desires, and passions, which constituted the very essence of beings during the Lunar Epoch—was able to develop to the highest level it could attain. It had developed to the utmost degree. The people who now live in the Earth’s evolutionary development possess the intellect. Our ancestors did not think; they merely felt what they had to accomplish. Thinking is what the Earth is meant to develop. We have a feeling that is subordinate to thinking. We do not follow our feelings directly; we allow them to be regulated by thought. They are guided along the right path through thinking. The inhabitants of the Moon could surrender to their feelings. They did not need to think about the affairs of their lives. They felt immediately what they had to do. This emotional life, which lived in all beings, developed there to an infinite height. Today, when intellectual life is what matters, we no longer have any idea of the infinite gentleness and goodness and of the grandeur of this emotional life. These beings who evolved on the Moon were raised to the level of divinity. The Masters who evolved on the Moon were pure wisdom flowing from feeling. These Masters once united to form great brotherhoods, and they constituted a great unity as the Moon waned. Everything had merged into one great unity. This divine being, who was, so to speak, the pinnacle of the lunar epoch, is addressed in Genesis as the God—Yahweh or Jehovah. Here, God is nothing other than the pinnacle of being’s evolution on the Moon. Yahweh is a lunar deity and is also referred to as such by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. She may have emphasized it a bit too strongly, but it is true. The great being who had developed the emotional life to its highest degree—that was Jehovah or Yahweh. What came over from the Moon—Kama in its highest perfection, water in its highest perfection, the flood—developed in two directions. On the one hand, it condensed and took on matter—the blood; on the other hand, it became more subtle and took on spirit. Above, it shone in the spirit; below, it glowed in the blood. Thus Yahweh differentiated himself. The primordial water gives rise, on the one hand, to the heavens, its spiritual pole, and on the other hand, to the earth, its physical, material pole.

[ 13 ] So what was the situation like? Imagine this: the Kama water flows over here, the spirit is above, and the physical—the blood—is below. The earth was chaotic; the blood was disordered. Nothing but a tangled and chaotic flood of the physical and material. That was one pole.

[ 14 ] The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the waters. There was darkness beneath the waters, and darkness was in the depths. And the Spirit was above the waters. The waters were the middle realm. The Spirit hovered above the Kama waters like an aura.

[ 15 ] Be very clear about what this aura is. We have already discussed this. The physical body is not an aura, and what lives within the physical body is not an aura either, because that can be seen with the physical eyes. Nor is the spirit an aura. Only the soul produces an aura; everything that is of the soul produces an aura. This aura is influenced by the body from within or by the spirit from without. That is why there are three auras: the one clouded by the body, the one illuminated by the spirit, and the actual glowing light of the soul. One is the realm through which the body is reflected in the soul; the other is the realm through which the spirit is reflected in the soul. Now you understand clearly how the Spirit of God hovers over the waters—or over the soul—and that the Kama is thereby illuminated by the spirit. The spirit does not need to be light. But when the spirit enters the aura, it intensifies the light.

And God said, “Let there be light!” [Genesis 1:3]

[ 16 ] That is to say: The reflection of the spirit arises in the waters.

[ 17 ] I would like the first three sentences of Genesis to be taken literally. It is not a matter of interpreting these sentences as one sees fit, but rather of thinking the right thoughts as one reads the words. Regarding water: Kama; regarding God: the most highly developed aspect that emerged from Kama beginning in the Lunar Epoch. “This is my blood”—it is the same as that which flows within the earth.

[ 18 ] The Book of Genesis originated from the writings of the Egyptian temple mysteries. These had two major [moral] books. One was the Book of the Microcosm, the other was the Book of the Macrocosm. The latter described how the great cosmos arises from water through the Word. The former, the Book of the Microcosm, was the book of the perfect human. Both were entirely parallel descriptions. This must imply that the human being is a microcosm. Only one who was initiated could have brought this about.

[ 19 ] The Master initiates those whom he loves. The miracle of Lazarus is an initiation. That is why Lazarus is also referred to as “the one whom Jesus loved.”

[ 20 ] The Gospel of John begins with the same words: “In the beginning was the Word.”

[ 21 ] One can only understand the world’s great books if one has the confidence that every word will only be understood once one delves truly deeply into the subject matter, and that one should hold off on forming an opinion about them for as long as possible. That is the confidence we need, for we must have confidence in the world’s great books. This is what we must gradually learn again through the Theosophical Movement: to take these books truly at face value.

[ 22 ] “Mountain” is the key word for higher truths, for initiations. Jesus went up the mountain with his disciples when he saw the crowd. In the sacred scriptures, we come to know the authority with which they were written. We recognize them as masterpieces when we see how everything fits together so wonderfully and how what we have gained through our Masters since the last third of the nineteenth century once again serves as the key to understanding these great books.