The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture XIX

[ 1 ] Yesterday we saw how human beings are related in a certain way to the astral forces. When a person dies, they first enter the astral world. But even now, they remain in a continuous relationship with the astral plane. In fact, beings continually become visible on the astral plane who would not be there if there were no human beings. Through human beings—and in a certain sense even more so through animals—they come onto the astral plane. They are not like the other beings of the astral plane. On the astral plane, what is at first only perceptible to human beings becomes visible. Pleasure, suffering, and instincts are as truly present there as external objects—such as a chair or a table—are on the physical plane. They are so present there that an entity that appears to us as pleasure initially affects our feelings when its astral substance is still very thin.

[ 2 ] What occurs on the astral plane is generally present there as a mirror image of what exists on the physical plane; for example, the number 563 is 365 there. A feeling of hatred also appears there as if it were coming from the person to whom it was sent. This fact applies to all things on the astral plane. One can perceive the spiritual elements that shine through from the astral plane onto the physical plane here with opposite characteristics. When spiritual sensations penetrate from the astral plane, for example, while they are warmth there, they penetrate here—as a mirror image of the astral plane—with a peculiar sensation of cold. These are things one must make quite clear to oneself.

[ 3 ] On the other hand, we must bear in mind that the beings of the astral plane have, in relation to matter, what we call “feeling.” They are expressed through this feeling. If these beings are not yet very strong, we can perceive them only in this way—namely, through a sensation of cold. But as they grow stronger—as their material substance increases—they become visible as luminous beings. This explains why, when materializations at spiritualist séances condense sufficiently, a luminous phenomenon occurs (the mollusk crab, for example). This is a natural process in such cases. Anyone who observes such a phenomenon without this knowledge speaks of a miracle. A miracle is nothing other than the intervention of a higher world into our own. It is simply a natural process. This is what happens when other entities from higher planes intervene in human life.

[ 4 ] We understand that a mere cool, dry thought is less effective on the astral plane than a thought that springs impulsively from the soul. When human beings in our present culture have advanced to the point where they are no longer subject to passions—our culture does, after all, have a certain refinement—and when cool thoughts about world events rise from them to the astral plane, they manifest there as voids; they leave matter out. In ordinary space, one can introduce matter that fills the space. This is not the case with the matter that flows out into astral space through thought. In contrast to physical matter, it acts in this way: it displaces what is already there, much as if, for example, one were to drill a hole in a dough made of flour. This is what happens when our thoughts radiate into the astral space. Higher matter is the opposite of lower matter: instead of filling the space, it displaces what is already there. This is the astral matter that is being displaced.

[ 5 ] When a thought enters the astral space, a denser layer forms around the void created by the thought. Colorful phenomena appear around this void. It begins to glow and shine around the void. This is the thought-form that we see first. The astral matter around it becomes denser and, as a result, brighter. This brightness that arises around the thought soon disappears; but if the thought is connected to a powerful impulse of passion, then it has an affinity with the densified astral matter and animates it. Thus, people who are still very undeveloped but very passionate create living beings in the astral realm when they think. This ceases later; as people develop and become increasingly calm, such beings no longer arise when they think. But now you understand that there are beings on the astral plane that originate from humans and also from animals. For such beings also form in certain animals, and indeed much more intensely. But the animal projects its own impulses into its own astral form, so that in the astral realm it usually creates its own form, its image.

[ 6 ] Every animal leaves behind a kind of trace in the astral plane that, although short-lived, persists for a time. But the strong, passionate thoughts of human beings give rise to new elemental beings in the astral plane. Gradually, however, human beings reach the point where a kind of neutral elemental being emerges on the astral plane. Once the stage where mere mechanisms arise in the astral realm is finally surpassed, human beings begin to increasingly refine their passions and instincts. This leads them to infuse their thoughts with a noble enthusiasm. This enthusiasm also has the power to enliven the astral matter surrounding the thought. For example, the development of patriotism also gives rise to beings of a noble form, and the elemental beings thus created contribute to advancing that which lives in the astral realm. The less noble beings that humans generate through thoughts filled with passions are obstacles and cause regression. But everything that humans achieve in the non-physical realm through enthusiasm and so on has a beneficial effect in the astral realm.

[ 7 ] The matter condensed in the astral realm by passionate thought is the same matter that once surrounded the previous planet, the Moon, and from which the Moon evolved to a higher stage. Therefore, wherever such matter exists, there is a danger. We humans are such that we must incarnate in today’s physical matter. On the earlier planet, the present physical matter did not yet exist; it was more perfect than that of today’s animals and less perfect than that of today’s humans. This matter, into which Jehovah strives to incarnate, does not, as such, provide a good dwelling place. However, the beings who have advanced to the point of attaining the stage they were meant to reach on the Moon will cause no harm. They do not love this matter.

[ 8 ] It is not the matter into which human beings are currently incarnating. But for certain beings who have remained on the Moon, the Moon’s astral matter is, so to speak, a feast—they wish to feed on it, and it exerts a great attraction on them. This proves that we are constantly surrounded by beings whose higher nature is akin to our lower nature. When humans generate selfish thoughts, this is very welcome to these beings. In other respects, they are actually more advanced than humans, but in this regard they have a desire to incarnate in the astral forms that we ourselves create. These are the so-called Asuras. Through base thought-forms, we provide sustenance to these asuric beings.

[ 9 ] When people who have not yet been purified are not sufficiently free of passion, meditate, and then create powerful thought-forms, they generate a strong aura of passion around themselves. Within this aura, certain Asuric entities incarnate, which can then pull the person down. If a person meditates in a state of sleep-like stupor and then does not rise high enough in thought, he creates this matter; and since he has no counterbalance, such entities incarnate within his thought-forms. These are higher beings because they had already fully developed the Manas on the Moon before the impact of Buddhi occurred; thus, they do not bear the imprint of Buddhi. Therefore, their Manas is self-centered. If human beings on Earth, from the moment Manas approached them from the outside, had not also received the influence of Buddhi—if they had merely continued to develop the forward-striving Manas—they would have become beings that are self-centered in the highest sense. The development of Manas tends toward self-centeredness and independence. It was intended to make human beings independent, but then the influence of the buddhi nature had to come. The aforementioned asuric beings, because they developed manas within themselves too early, missed the influence of the buddhi nature. Therefore, on the one hand, they stand higher, and on the other hand, they cannot progress but continue to develop the kama-manas, the egoistic aspect.

[ 10 ] In the middle of the Lemurian race, Kama-Manas appeared on the physical plane in the form of sexual duality. The god who brought forth Kama-Manas was Jehovah. That is why Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls him the moon god; he is rightly called the god of fertility. He took the outward manifestation of Kama-Manas to its extreme. The sexual principle that emerged during the Lemurian era—when we trace it back and view it in its ever-higher and higher nature—becomes the Second Logos. Descending through the Kama principle, it became Jehovah; ascending through the Buddha principle, it became the Christ principle.

[ 11 ] But when we sink into the kamic realm of the pre-earthly period, we are drawn down by the Asuric entities. The higher powers of our spiritual predecessors are linked to the forces of our own lower nature. Human passions stand in an occult relationship to the higher powers of the spiritual entities that preceded us. Wherever there is debauchery, there is the material medium through which powerful asuric forces radiate sophisticated intellectuality into the world. Such strong asuric forces are found among depraved human tribes. The black magician draws his strongest serving forces precisely from the swamp of sensuality. Sexual rites serve to draw people into these circles. There is a constant struggle on Earth, with one side striving to purify the passions and the other seeking to intensify sensuality. The beings guided by the Christ principle seek to win the Earth for themselves, but the other, hostile beings also seek to seize the Earth for themselves.

[ 12 ] These incarnations of Asuric entities in the emanations of human thoughts filled with passion are one type of astral entity. They are called artificial elemental beings because they are artificially produced by humans. There are also natural elemental beings in astral space. These originate from the group souls of animals. For every animal group, there is an entity on the astral plane that unites what is present in the individual animals. We also encounter these in the astral realm. Every animal trails its entire nature behind it astral-ly, like a tail. However, this formation cannot be as harmful as the elemental beings that humans create in the astral realm. It is harmless because it is neutralized by the group soul of the animals. This is not the case with the entities created by humans, because nothing neutralizes them, so these elemental beings are permanent.

[ 13 ] When an animal is tortured, the totality of the pain inflicted upon it immediately rebounds upon the human astral body. Here, of course, it is reflected as a counter-image; hence the lust for cruelty. Such a sensation of pleasure drags the human astral body down. When a human being destroys life, it signifies something monstrous within the human being himself... (gap in the text.) Nothing enables one to acquire astral forces that have a destructive effect as much as killing does. Every killing of a being that has an astral body produces a strengthening of the most savage egoism. It signifies an increase in power. That is why, in schools of black magic, the first lesson taught is how to cut into animals; cutting at a specific spot with the appropriate thoughts arouses a certain power, while cutting at another spot arouses a different power. The equivalent practice for the white magician lies in meditation. Something returns on the physical plane when it is done with physically accompanying thoughts; without thoughts, it returns on the Kamaloka plane.

[ 14 ] Overpowering a person through hypnotic means is an even more severe form of killing, because it destroys the will. That is why the occultist never interferes with a person’s freedom; he merely states the facts. From the astral point of view, a lie is both murder and suicide. It deceives the other person and creates within them a feeling that relates to a nonexistent fact, to nothingness. On the astral plane, the opposite image of that nothingness—killing—immediately appears. Thus, you kill something within a person when, through a lie, you direct their feelings toward something that does not exist, and you commit suicide because... [gap in the text.]