The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture X

[ 1 ] When one considers the human being in his or her entirety, one first sees the physical body, then the etheric and astral bodies. Everyone can see a person’s physical body. The etheric body becomes visible when one uses a strong act of will to make the physical body disappear. Then the space occupied by the physical body remains filled with the etheric body. The occultist actually regards the etheric body as the lowest body. It is the body upon which the physical human being is formed. According to the descending line, the etheric body is formed in opposition to the physical body; only according to the ascending line are the two alike. A woman has a masculine etheric body, and a man has a feminine etheric body.

[ 2 ] The astral body appears around the etheric body. The astral body is the outer form of all soul contents: passions, emotions, instincts, desires, feelings of pleasure and displeasure, enthusiasm, and so on. It manifests itself in the most diverse forms. Cloud-like formations appear all around it; it shines in a wide variety of colors. Sometimes individual formations hang from it like shreds. The forms and colors are varied and changeable. Green indicates sympathy and compassion toward fellow human beings. The lower classes of the population display a great deal of red in their astral bodies—brownish-red, brick-red, blood-red. Such a red color, indicative of base passions, is frequently observed, particularly among cab drivers.

[ 3 ] The entire mass of the astral body in every human being is enclosed within an egg-shaped sheath. This sheath has a blue base color and features a dark violet spot essentially at the center of the brain. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls this egg-shaped sheath the “auric egg.” In young children, the auric egg is predominant; within it, many bright, light clouds of color appear. In the lower regions, however, even young children often have dark clouds, which indicate something base. This is the inherited karma they share with their ancestors. These are the sins of the fathers. These sins of the fathers are inherited up to the seventh generation. A person’s characteristics can be traced back as far as the seventh great-grandfather. After the seventh generation, this inheritance ceases. Three generations are counted within a century. Thus, people today still exhibit some good or bad traits from the good or bad characteristics of their ancestors from the 17th century. In this way, one can look back two hundred years—or even a little further—to the ancestors.

[ 4 ] To understand how the auric egg was formed, we must examine the evolution of a world body. We call the state of the Earth that is closest to our consideration the physical state. In theosophical literature, a state of form is called a globe, and thus one speaks of the physical globe. As a physical globe, the Earth is the fourth globe in a sequence of seven states. Three other states preceded the physical globe, and three more will follow. Before the Earth became physical, it was astral. Everything that lived on Earth at that time existed only in astral form. When humanity has passed through the sixth and seventh root races (major ages), it will be so spiritualized that it will once again have an astral form. However, this future astral state of form will contain the full fruit of evolution.

[ 5 ] Seven states of form together make up a cycle. The Earth is now going through its fourth cycle, and this is the mineral cycle. Humanity’s task during this time is to work through the mineral kingdom. Even when a person takes a flint and hammers it into a wedge to use for working on other things, that is already work on the mineral kingdom. When humans quarry rock and build pyramids from stones, when they make tools from metals, and when they transmit electrical current across the Earth via a grid, they are working with the mineral kingdom. In this way, humans put the entire mineral kingdom to work in their service. They transform the Earth entirely into a work of art. When a painter combines colors according to his Manas, he, too, is working with the mineral kingdom. We are now in the midst of this activity, and in the coming races (great epochs) it will be completely transformed, so that ultimately there will be no atom left on Earth that has not been worked upon by humankind. In the past, these atoms became increasingly solidified; now, however, they are increasingly breaking apart again. Radioactivity did not exist at all in the past; therefore, it could not be discovered back then. It has only existed for a few millennia, because the atoms are now splitting apart more and more.

[ 6 ] When the fourth round comes to an end, the entire mineral kingdom will have passed through human hands. Once humanity has fully worked through the mineral kingdom, the Earth must transition into an astral state so that the fruit of this labor may appear. It is in this state that forms can unfold. Afterward, the Earth transitions into a mental globe and then into the higher mental state, the arupic state. Then the Earth disappears entirely from these states in a minor pralaya. It then transitions again into a new arupic state of the next, the fifth round, then into a rupamental state, then into an astral state; after that, it reappears physically. Everything that humanity has incorporated into the mineral kingdom during the fourth round then reappears and grows as part of the plant kingdom in the fifth round; for example, Cologne Cathedral will grow as a plant in the next round.

[ 7 ] Between the last arupic state of the fourth round and the first arupic state of the fifth round, the Earth passes through a pralaya. In the fifth round, the former mineral kingdom then appears in all its forms as the plant kingdom. The arupic state of the fifth round contains everything that humanity has processed during the mineral round. This reappears initially in the arupic state, in pure Akasha. This state is called “Akasha.” At the beginning of every new cycle, everything is initially contained within Akasha. Later, only imprints remain in Akasha. Thus, within these imprints in Akasha, we have the entire Earth with all its beings. During the transition from the third to the fourth cycle, all beings that arose in the third cycle also reappear in Akasha at the beginning of the fourth cycle.

[ 8 ] As the Earth continues to develop from the Akasha, the whole must condense; it must take on a denser form. This occurs in the Earth’s rupa state. In occultism—as mentioned, for example, in several passages by H.P. Blavatsky—this more material form is called the ether. In this etheric Earth, everything exists only as thought. All beings were contained in thought within this etheric earth. But behind it, the Akasha remains as a foundation. The ether condenses further into astral light. In astral light, the third globe (state of form), the astral earth, shines forth; it shines entirely in the purest astral light, and indeed, this astral light is entirely of the same substance in which the human auric egg later shines. This is particularly evident in very young children who are only a few months old. Thereupon, the Earth transitions into its present, physical state. Then it becomes the actual Earth and, in the process, grows ever more physical. But to the same extent that it becomes ever more physical, it separates out the individual auric eggs for humanity. They separate in the same way that, in a filled vessel of water, the water freezes into ice on one hand and trickles away in drops on the other. Thus, on the one hand, the physical Earth separates, and on the other, the auric eggs for human development trickle away.

[ 9 ] At first, the auric egg appears as an undifferentiated entity. In reality, however, it is not undifferentiated. It behaves in a manner similar to the following: If we have a solution of table salt, it is a uniform, grayish mass; if we let it stand, the beautiful cubes of table salt separate out. Within the auric egg, the forces that the etheric body, the linga sharira, brings forth have been predisposed. From what has become solid earth, what had previously undergone development on the Moon later emerges as well. This contains the predisposition for the lower kingdoms up to the first vertebrates, up to the snake. The animals that follow among the vertebrates did not yet exist on the Moon; they were added only on Earth. The invertebrates thus emerged from the Earth as it condensed into the physical Earth, as did the plants and the mineral kingdom.

[ 10 ] By the time all this had taken shape, humankind had entered the Lemurian era. Humanity, becoming ever more dense, evolved from the first, the Polar race, to the second, the Hyperborean race. This was followed by the Lemurian era; that is when the evolution of vertebrates began, as they only began to develop from that point onward.

[ 11 ] We distinguish as follows: First, Akasha; second, ether; third, astral light; fourth, earth; fifth, the auric egg.

[ 12 ] This is called a vortex. As it descended toward Earth, the fourth state of form, the Earth became increasingly dense. At the cost of becoming ever more condensed, the astral light became individualized after the solid matter had been pushed out. The auric eggs of human beings are this individualized astral light. That is why one can read in the astral light; not the actions themselves, but the emotions associated with them can be read in the astral light. For example, Caesar conceived the thought of crossing the Rubicon, which was linked in him to certain feelings and passions. That action corresponds to a sum of astral impulses. Physical actions on the physical plane are gone for all eternity. Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon can no longer be seen in the astral light; but the impulse that drove him to do so has remained in the astral light. The kamic (astral) correlates of what takes place on the physical plane remain in the astral light. One must accustom oneself to disregarding all physical perceptions and to seeing only the kamic impulses. These must be grasped and consciously translated back into the physical realm. It makes no sense to search for something that would look as if one had photographed the events.

[ 13 ] However, the greatest impulses in world history can no longer be read in the astral light, for the impulses of the great Initiates were devoid of passion. Therefore, for those who read only in the astral light, the entire work of the Initiates is not accessible; for example, the content of the book *Les grands Initiés* by Edouard Schuré could not have been found in the astral light. Such impressions are recorded only in the ether. What one can read in the astral light about what the great Initiates did is based on an illusion, because one can only read the consequences of the great Initiates’ actions from the impulses of their disciples. Disciples and entire peoples felt vividly and passionately about the actions of the great Initiates, and this has remained in the astral light. However, it is so difficult to study the innermost motives of the great Initiates because they exist only in the ether.

[ 14 ] Cosmic events—transformations such as those of Atlantis—now exist on an even higher plane, no longer in the ether but in the Akasha itself. This is the Akashic Records. Yet, in a certain sense, it is still connected to the most mundane affairs of human beings. For human beings are connected to the great events of the cosmos. Every single human being can be found, in general terms, in the Akashic Records. What is there continues and extends into the ether and into the astral light. The individual human being becomes increasingly recognizable the more one searches for them in the lower realms. And one must study all these realms in order to understand the actual mechanism of karma.