The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we spoke of the various incarnations of our planet—the Saturn and Sun incarnations— and we would like to briefly recall that on this solar planet—the predecessor of our Earth—humanity had evolved to the point where it possessed a physical body and an etheric body, meaning it had ascended to a kind of plant existence. I have also told you how different this plant existence was, however, from what you know today in the plant world around you. We will see that the plants that surround you today first arose on our Earth. We have also described, in a certain way, how—because these human ancestors on the Sun had an etheric body—they expressed in their physical body primarily those organs that we now know as glandular organs, as organs of growth, reproduction, and nutrition. All of this could be seen on the Sun just as rocks, stones, and plants are seen on our Earth. Alongside this, there was a realm that we might call the “retarded” Saturn realm, which contained the potential for what would later become the mineral kingdom. So not minerals as we know them today—there can be no question of that on this solar body—but bodies that, so to speak, had not acquired the ability to incorporate an etheric body within themselves and which, as a result, had remained, in a certain sense, at the mineral stage that humanity had previously passed through on Saturn. We must therefore speak of two kingdoms that formed on the Sun. In theosophical literature, it has become customary to speak of humanity having passed through the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom. As you can see, this is an imprecise way of expressing it. This mineral kingdom on Saturn was structured quite differently. The first seeds, the precursors of our sense organs, were already foreshadowed in the forms of that realm. Likewise, on the Sun there was not a plant kingdom like the one we have today, but rather everything that lives today in human beings as organs of growth—namely, all the glandular organs—was of a plant nature. They were plant-like because they were permeated by the etheric body.

[ 2 ] Now we must imagine that this solar state has passed through a kind of dormant state, a period of darkness, a latency. However, you must not imagine that a planet’s passage through such a dormant state is, as it were, a passage through inactivity, a state of nothingness. It is no more so than the human state of Devachan. The human Devachan is not a state of inactivity. Rather, we have seen how human beings there are engaged in constant activity and play a vital role in the evolution of our Earth. Only to the present-day human consciousness does this state appear to be a kind of state of sleep. To a different kind of consciousness, however, it appears as a much more active, real state. All these passages are a journey through heavenly, higher states in which important events for the planets take place. In theosophical terminology, they are called “Pralaya.”

[ 3 ] Let us now imagine how the Sun went through such a state and how what is called in occultism the third state of our Earth—the Moon—developed from the Sun. If we had been able to observe this process, we would have seen something like the following. Over the course of millions of years, we would have seen the Sun’s existence change and fade away, and after millions more years, we would have seen it light up again following a twilight state. This is the beginning of the lunar cycle.

[ 4 ] In the early days, when the Sun began to shine again, there was no question of a separation between the Sun and the Moon; they were still together, just as in the Age of the Sun. And then, at first, what is called a repetition of earlier conditions took place. At a certain higher level, what had happened on Saturn and the Sun repeated itself. Then a remarkable change occurred in the state of this Sun that had reappeared: the Moon separated from the Sun. Two planets—or rather, a fixed star and a planet—emerged from the old solar system. A larger and a smaller mass formed: the Sun and the Moon. The Moon of which we are now speaking contained not only what today’s Moon contains, but rather everything that today’s Earth and Moon contain in terms of various substances and entities. If you were to mix all of that together, you would have that Moon of which we speak and which broke away from the Sun at that time.

[ 5 ] The Sun became a fixed star by drawing out the finest substances along with the spiritual beings. This is how it became a fixed star. When it was still a planetary sun, it still contained all of that within itself. But because it now relinquished to an independent planet everything that would have hindered the beings’ higher development, it became a fixed star. And we now have before us the cosmic spectacle of a higher-formed body as a fixed star, and moving around it in space, a planet that is less valuable—the Moon—that is, today’s Moon and today’s Earth in one.

[ 6 ] This motion of the Moon around the Sun was quite different from the motion of the Earth today. If you observe it, you can distinguish two motions. First, the Earth revolves around the Sun, and second, it rotates on its own axis. As you know, this latter motion—which occurs approximately 365 times a year—gives rise to day and night, while the former gives rise to the four seasons. But this was not the case on the ancient Moon. In a certain sense, this Moon was a more “polite” body toward its Sun than our Earth is, for it always moved around the Sun in such a way that it constantly presented the same side to it. It never turned its far side toward the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, it rotated on its axis only once. Such a different kind of motion, however, has a great effect on the beings that develop on the planet.

[ 7 ] Now I would like to describe this lunar planet to you myself. First and foremost, I must say that human beings had progressed even further there than they had on the Sun and Saturn. They had now reached the point where they consisted not only of a physical and etheric body, but also had an astral body. So we now have a human being composed of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, but who did not yet have an “I.” The result of this was that this particular human being of the Moon advanced to that third state of consciousness we have described—the pictorial consciousness—the last vestige of which we find in the dream-pictorial consciousness of modern human beings. Now, as this astral body integrated itself with the other bodies, changes took place in them—particularly in the physical body. We have seen how, on the Sun, the glandular organs were the highest development within the physical body, and how certain areas were permeated by radiations that later solidified into what we now call the solar plexus. Through the work of the astral body on the physical body during the Moon period, the very beginnings of the nervous system arose. This is when the nerves became integrated, which you still have today in a similar form in the nerves of the spinal cord.

[ 8 ] Now consider this: Human beings did not yet have an independent “I”; only the three bodies mentioned were present. This human “I” was present in the atmosphere surrounding the Moon, just as the etheric body had once been on Saturn and the astral body on the Sun; and from there, embedded in the divine fundamental substance, this “I” worked upon the physical body. If we now consider that at that time the “I” was still working as a partner of divine beings—that it had not yet, so to speak, been separated or fallen away from this divine-spiritual being—we see that on its journey toward earthly existence, the “I” has, in a certain sense, undergone a kind of deterioration and, in another sense, also an improvement. An improvement in that the “I” has become independent, but a deterioration in that it has now been exposed to all doubt, all error, and all that is evil and bad.

[ 9 ] The “I”s worked from the divine-spiritual substance. When today an “I” works down from the astral plane to the physical plane, it is a group soul of the animals. Just as these group souls work into the animals today, so did the human “I” work from the outside into the three bodies back then. However, it was able to create bodies higher than those of today’s animals because it acted from within the divine substance. There were beings on the Moon who, by their appearance and by everything they were, stood higher than today’s most advanced apes, though not as high as modern humans. There was an intermediate realm between modern humans and the animal kingdom. Then there were two further kingdoms, both of which had remained behind: one that, so to speak, had not become capable of taking on the astral body from the Sun, and had thus remained at the stage where the glandular organs were on the Sun. This second kingdom on the Moon stood right in the middle between today’s animals and today’s plants; it was a kind of plant-animal. There are no similar beings directly on Earth today; we can only recognize vestiges of them. There was also a third kingdom that had already retained the Saturn state on the Sun; it stood in the middle between the mineral and plant kingdoms. Thus, we have three kingdoms on the Moon: plant-mineral, animal-plant, and human-animal.

[ 10 ] What we now call minerals—the ones you walk on—did not yet exist on the Moon. What we call rocks, topsoil, and humus did not yet exist back then. The lowest kingdom stood between the plant and mineral kingdoms. The entire substance of the Moon consisted of this kingdom. The Moon’s surface resembled, to some extent, today’s peat soil, where plants are just beginning to form a kind of plant pulp. The lunar beings walked about on a pulpy mass of plants and minerals. At certain stages of its development, the Moon was like this. One can also compare it to a cooked salad. Rocks, as we understand them today, did not exist. The highest form that existed were certain structures that you can compare to the mass that forms the wood or bark of certain trees. The lunar mountains consisted of such lignified structures, such masses of wood formed from lignified plant pulp. It was like a kind of old plant that had withered. Within this, the mineral kingdom was preparing itself. These plant-animals grew on it. They could not move independently; they were firmly anchored to the ground, just like corals are today.

[ 11 ] In our myths and legends—which contain profound wisdom passed down by the initiated—a reminder of this has been preserved for us, namely in the myth of Baldur’s death. The Germanic god of the sun or light once had a dream in which his imminent death was foretold. This made the gods—the Aesir—who loved him, very sad. They pondered ways to save him. Frigg, the mother of the gods, made all creatures on Earth take solemn oaths that none would ever kill Baldur. Everyone swore, and so it seemed impossible that Baldur could ever fall victim to death. One day, the gods were playing and, during the game, threw all sorts of things at Baldur without wounding him; they knew he was invulnerable. But Loki, the enemy of the Aesir and the god of darkness, plotted to kill Baldur. Then he heard from Frigg that she had made all creatures swear an oath not to kill Baldur. Only far out in the wilderness was there a plant, the mistletoe, which was harmless; she had not taken an oath from it, and it revealed this to him. The cunning Loki took the mistletoe and brought it to the blind god Hödur, who, unaware of what he was doing, killed Baldur with the mistletoe. Thus, the evil dream was fulfilled through the mistletoe. It has always played a specific role in folk tradition. Something eerie and ghostly was expressed through it. What was taught about the mistletoe in the ancient Druidic mysteries has passed down to the people as legend and custom.

[ 12 ] The underlying truth is this: On the Moon, there was this mineral-plant slurry. The plant-animals of the Moon grew on it. Some of them evolved further and attained higher states on Earth, while others remained at the lunar stage; and when the Earth came into being, they could only take on stunted forms. They had to retain the habits they had developed on the Moon. They could only live on Earth on a plant-based diet, as saprophytes, as parasites. This is why mistletoe lives on other trees—because it is a vestigial remnant of the ancient plant-animals of the Moon.

[ 13 ] Baldur was the embodiment of that which evolves, that which brings light to the earth; Loki, on the other hand, the representative of the dark forces, of the backward, hates that which is advanced, that which has evolved. Therefore, Loki is Baldur’s adversary. All earthly beings were incapable of taking action against Baldur, the god who brought light to the earth, for they were his equals; they had undergone the same evolution. Only those who had remained behind at the lunar stage—those who felt connected to the ancient god of darkness—were capable of killing the god of light. Mistletoe is also a specific remedy, just as poisons are remedies in general. Thus, we find cosmic wisdom deep at the heart of ancient folk tales and customs.

[ 14 ] Now recall the beings on Saturn whose outermost body was the “I,” and that on the Sun there were beings whose outermost body was the astral body. On the Moon there were beings whose outermost body was the etheric body. They consisted of the etheric body, the astral body, the “I,” the spiritual self, the life spirit, the spiritual human, and a member above these, the eighth, of which we cannot yet speak in relation to human beings today: the Holy Spirit. We would have been able to see them only in their etheric bodies as ghostly beings. At that time, they were at the same stage of development as human beings are today. Christian esotericism calls them angels. They are beings who today stand immediately above human beings because they have developed upward to the level of the Holy Spirit. They are also called spirits of twilight or lunar Pitri.

[ 15 ] On Saturn, the spirits of the ego had as their leader a being known as the Father God. On the Sun, the spirits of fire had as their leader the Christ—the Logos, in the sense of the Gospel of John. On the Moon, the leader of the spirits of twilight was the same as what is known in Christianity as the Holy Spirit. Those beings who had undergone their humanity on the Moon had no need to descend here on Earth to the form of the physical body.

[ 16 ] Planetary formations have become denser and denser. In its densest state, ancient Saturn consisted solely of thermal matter. The Sun’s densest state was the same as what we see today in gases and air. However, you must imagine these substances to be somewhat denser than today’s thermal matter and gases. And at the lunar stage, the gaseous substances of the Sun had condensed to such an extent that they produced this paste-like, dense, watery, swelling mass, from which all these beings—including the highest ones, the animal-men on the Moon—were composed. If you imagine the white of a chicken egg to be somewhat denser, you have roughly this substance, and the nervous system was integrated into this human substance.

[ 17 ] This moon was surrounded by a kind of atmosphere that was quite different in composition from Earth’s atmosphere. We can grasp the nature of this substance by recalling a passage from Goethe’s Faust: it is the part where Mephistopheles, with Faust on his cloak, attempts to rise into the air. There he wants to create “fire air”; this would be air in which watery substances are dissolved in a mist-like state. This air, permeated with watery substances—called “fire air” or “fire mist”—was breathed by the beings on the moon. They had no lungs, not even the highest beings; they breathed through a kind of gills, just as fish do today.

[ 18 ] This fiery air, called “Ruach” in the Hebrew tradition, can indeed be manifested in a certain way. This Ruach has been lost to people today, but the ancient alchemists were able to create the conditions for it; through it, they could make elemental beings their servants. This fiery mist was therefore something quite familiar in alchemical times, and the further back we go, the more people were able to produce it. Our ancestors breathed this fiery mist on the Moon. It has evolved and differentiated into today’s air and into whatever else has come into being on Earth under the influence of fire.

[ 19 ] The smoky, vaporous lunar atmosphere, which had a certain degree of heat, was permeated—at times more, at times less—by currents that hung down from the air like strands, so to speak, sinking into human bodies and penetrating them. In much the same way, the human body on the Moon hung from a kind of cord that extended out into the atmosphere, just as a child today hangs from the umbilical cord in the mother’s womb. It was like a cosmic umbilical cord; and from this fiery air, substances entered the bodies that can be compared to what human beings themselves produce today—namely, blood. The “I,” however, was outside the human being and sent, through these strands, something blood-like into the bodies, and this substance flowed in and out of them. The beings never touched the surface of the moon; they hovered around it, circling it as if they were floating and flowing. Just as today’s aquatic animals move in the water, so did these lunar human-animals move. It was the work of the angels, the spirits of twilight, to cause these blood-like fluids to flow into the human beings.

[ 20 ] These entirely different conditions led to different consequences. A kind of circulatory system began to develop on the Moon. A blood-like substance flowed in and out from the cosmos, just as air flows into the body today, and this gave rise among these lunar animal-men to an ability that arises only through the blood. It was the first resounding of inner tones for soul experiences. Only when the astral body is present in beings does sensation arise, and they were able to express this sensation through sounds—in a remarkable way. These were not sounds actually produced; they could not have cried out their pain—there was no independent act of crying out or producing sound—but rather, it coincided with specific experiences. At certain times of the year on the Moon, what might be called a development of the reproductive instinct took place, and the beings were able to express the inner experiences they had during this process through sound; at other times, they remained silent. When the Moon was in a certain position relative to the Sun, during a particular season, the ancient Moon resounded out into the cosmos. The beings on it cried out their instinct into the world. We have retained vestiges of this in the cries of certain animals, such as the deer. The crying was more the manifestation of general processes than of individual experiences expressed at random. A cosmic event found its expression in it.

[ 21 ] We must regard all of this merely as approximate descriptions, for we are bound by words that were coined for things that have only come into being during our time on Earth. We would first have to invent a language if we wanted to express what the seer’s eye sees. Nevertheless, these descriptions are important, for they are the first step toward arriving at the truth. Only through the image, through imagination, do we find the path to direct perception. We should not form abstract concepts or mental schemas, nor should we record vibrations; rather, we should allow images to arise within ourselves—this is the direct path, the first step toward knowledge. For just as it is true that human beings were already present with their powers back then, so too is it true that when they form mental images today, these images lead them back to the states in which they found themselves at that time.

[ 22 ] After all beings on the Moon had completed their evolution and were able to advance to higher stages, the time came when the Moon and the Sun reunited, merged back into a single body, and thus entered Pralaya. After they had passed through this state of latency together, a new existence dawned: the first foreshadowing of our earthly existence. Now the first three states were briefly repeated at a higher level—first the Saturn existence, then the Sun existence—and then the Moon split off once more and orbited the remaining body. But this Moon still contained the Earth within it.

[ 23 ] Now comes another extremely important change. Everything that is earth is cast out of the present Moon. These are the worst substances and entities, the useless elements; they are contained within the present Moon. Everything that existed as a gushing, watery substance on the ancient Moon has frozen on the present-day Moon—this can be physically demonstrated—and that which was capable of further development remained behind as Earth. Higher development on Earth occurs through the separation of the ancient Sun into these three bodies: the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. This separation took place many thousands of years ago, during the ancient Lemurian era. And from those ancient lunar beings—described as plant-minerals, plant-animals, and animal-humans—emerged today’s minerals, today’s plants, today’s animals, and human beings, who have become capable of absorbing within themselves the “I” that formerly hovered around them and was united with the Divinity. The union of the “I” with humankind took place after the separation of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and from that point on, humankind has become capable of developing red blood within itself and ascending to its present stage.