The Rudolf Steiner Archive

38. About Lemuria

[ 1 ] The origins of the Lemurian race are, in principle, different from what is today called “human.” These beings were influenced by factors entirely different from those that ultimately came to define humanity. They were beings incapable of perceiving light or color, capable only of sensing differences in temperature. These beings did not have skin, like beings that swim in a body of water and have a somewhat denser, spring-like nature; they perceive denser and thinner parts within it, cooler and warmer ones. A Pitr-like spiritual being that forms its body from the surrounding misty, watery mass—the Pitris, who were formerly astral, become physical in this fiery mist. Fluid, jelly-like, shifting in temperature—a self-born being. These Pitris possess the creative force that materializes and the material substance—the fiery mist; the light that radiates from within and the darkness that is drawn from without: Sons of Twilight.

[ 2 ] These masses of mist are constantly changing, like clouds; fragments break off and others grow. Pitri tends to give his matter ever clearer and sharper outlines /gap in the transcript]. Previously, he was indifferent to form; now he loves it, preserves it, and when it dissolves, he recreates it.

1. The Arupic
2. The Rupic Nebulaceous-Born—Sweat-Born
3. This state differs from the second in that Pitri makes the matter—the form acquired earlier—even denser, and through constriction causes another form to emerge from it: the Egg-Born.

[ 3 ] The third male-female subrace: Adam Kadmon.

[ 4 ] Now, for the first time, something is taking place within the human being; a center has been created within itself. The first beginnings of the nervous system. We now already have a definite form. Only now is there a human individual; the human principle has entered into matter. Now the sons of light and fiery mist come and take possession of these still very subtle bodies, radiating the bright light of the spirit from within themselves for the first time: the Arhats, the first great teachers of humanity.

[ 5 ] There were some who could not be inhabited by adepts, but had to be developed. The brain is developed to the point where it can already reflect the spiritual, but cannot recognize it; it remains dull within them; people with a dreamlike consciousness, to whom the Highest is offered.

[ 6 ] A third type does not even get that far. This is called Amanasic. The human Pitris are there, waiting to incarnate. — The shadows, human templates, and elemental beings described above were macrocosmic Pitris. — The solar ones enter [illegible]. “We do not incarnate into the Amanasic humans,” say the Pitris.

[ 7 ] Because a center has been created and the impulse has moved into denser matter, the process of separation can no longer take place. The dull-witted and the dreamy must become more perfect; there is no procreation. These are already the three lower kingdoms, animals that were already developed:

The root race of the adepts,
- Dream-minded
- Dull-minded
- Animals.

[ 8 ] Now the brain is supposed to develop in such a way that the Pitris can enter it. This is when the Amanasic human mixes with the animal and defiles human nature. He absorbs something he takes from the animal realm—something that does not belong to the human realm: guilt.

[ 9 ] This is how the two sexes come into being. Differentiation arises, and so does reproduction. On the one hand, the human duality of the sexes emerges; on the other, the animal duality of the sexes. This is how humans came into being—they developed the brain and incorporated the animal nature, which became the sexual aspect. If the Pitris had incarnated in those with dream-consciousness, each would possess the capacity to receive the Pitri within their entire nature. But there would be no free self-determination.

[ 10 ] Now one has emerged that cannot encompass the entire Pitri; the power of the Pitri extends far beyond the human being, and only a part of it can be represented. The Pitri wishes to live out its life in the light, not in a dreamlike state, but it can do so only through many incarnations. The densified, sinful body could not merge with the Pitri all at once. We are approaching the end of the Lemurian race. The Pitri is embodied but unable to find complete fulfillment in space and time.

[ 11 ] Now there was a cavity in the body—a respiratory organ—so that humans could connect with the air that had now come into being. The water vapor had become increasingly dense and had finally separated from the now thinner air as water. Lung-breathing humans appear, and many animals that previously lived only in water now become air-dwelling creatures: birds. Because they need [heat] internally, humans draw the power of fire into themselves, and the circulatory system emerges; organ heat arises, and as they develop their heart internally, they create the fire externally that consumes them and in which the Lemurian continent perishes. The kamic power, applied by humans, ignited the finer air.