The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophy and Rosicrucianism X

[ 1 ] Today we want to consider the transformation of the ancient Moon into our Earth. But first, we must point out an important aspect of the Moon’s evolution itself. As this evolution drew to a close—that is, once everything I described yesterday had more or less taken place—a reunification of the ancient Moon with the Sun itself occurred. This ancient Moon, so to speak, fell back into the Sun, so that once again there was a unified body. Then this body entered a sort of dormant state of planetary existence, and the fourth metamorphosis emerged anew; this was not immediately what our Earth represents, but rather the condition of our Earth was only slowly being prepared. We can best understand a cosmic law through the example of our Earth: that later states must, in a certain sense, repeat what was already there before. Before our Earth could truly become our Earth after its awakening, it had to briefly repeat once more the states of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. However, this development unfolded in a somewhat different way than it did for the three planets themselves.

[ 2 ] We have heard that on Saturn the first rudiments of the sensory organs we possess were present. By the first repetition, these sensory formations had already advanced to such an extent that a kind of human form began to take shape; yet during this metamorphosis, that automatic sensory apparatus did not yet have an etheric body. During the repetition of the solar stage, the etheric body took shape, and during the third transformation—the repetition of the lunar stage—the astral body emerged. In the third phase, we again have the Sun and Moon floating separately in space. The beings were somewhat more highly developed because they were increasingly preparing for what they were to experience on Earth. The four bodies that the animal-human race possessed on the Moon were joined by a fourth member: the “I.” However, this did not happen quickly. While the Earth was undergoing its Saturn period, the entire human sensory apparatus had to develop the form that would enable the “I” to be received. During the Solar Recurrence, the etheric body transformed itself so that it could become the vehicle for the “I”; and during the Lunar Recurrence, the astral body also transformed itself so that it could receive the “I.” It was as if these members were, so to speak, waiting to receive an “I.”

[ 3 ] What we have already been able to trace was a separation of the Sun and the Moon. Then, as we approach our own evolution, we are dealing with a splitting apart of the Moon and the Earth. The ancient Moon split into two bodies: one, consisting of the worst material available in terms of beings and substances, was cast out into outer space; the other is our present-day Earth. Whatever would have prevented the beings from undergoing further development had to be eliminated, and that formed the present-day Moon. Only then did the Earth exist as an independent celestial body. We are thus faced with momentous cosmic events: the separation of the Sun from the Earth and the Moon; and then, in turn, the separation of the Earth from the Moon. These two events paved the way for our present development.

[ 4 ] I have guided you up to the point where our Earth became an independent sphere. I would now like to guide you to this point from another perspective, so that you have a clear understanding of where this point lies for our Earth.

[ 5 ] Let us now go back from the immediate present into the past; let us begin, then, with the form of the Earth that you all know. Even the natural sciences point to considerable differences between the Earth’s appearance in the past and its appearance today. Although all of this is based on hypothesis, we can be pleased that the natural sciences and the spiritual sciences are already finding some common ground in this regard. Natural science tells us: In the regions where we live today, there were vast primeval forests with a climate like that which prevails today at the equator; mighty animals roamed there. According to what natural science tells us today, the face of the Earth looked quite different back then. Following the tropical climate that prevailed back then—prior to today’s temperate climate—came the glacial or Ice Age, and so on. These are facts you can already find in any geology textbook. I mention this to point out that we must fully realize how the face of the Earth changes dramatically over certain periods of time and looks entirely different. Natural science, which has at its disposal only the deductive mind, its instruments, and so on, can look back only a few millennia at the Earth’s external appearance. But when the seer looks back, he must describe it in a somewhat different way; nevertheless, that harmony between natural science and spiritual science will one day come to pass. Natural science already points out to us today the fact—which the seer must assert with certainty—that the face of the Earth has not only changed in terms of plants and so on, but that entirely different regions of our Earth were covered by land or sea than is the case today. Huxley, for example, has pointed out that an entire part of Great Britain has already been submerged four times. Accordingly, the face of our Earth looks completely different time and again. — For example, in Kosmos, Issue 10, you will find an essay on the so-called ancient Atlantis, in which a scholar grounded entirely in the natural sciences demonstrates, based on the configuration of the plant and animal kingdoms in Europe and America, that what is now the Atlantic Ocean must have been land in the past, and that in those times large parts of Africa must have been sea rather than land. Instead, the land of Atlantis existed to the west of us, stretching between Europe and America.

[ 6 ] The scholar, it is true, can only speak of the flora and fauna, but that is only natural. Even if there were remains of those ancient people, our ancestors—which must be found on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean—it is still not possible today to explore the ocean floor to that extent. The spiritual researcher looks back to the dawn of time and knows that ancient Atlantis—which even Plato wrote about—truly existed back then. Essentially, the entire area that is now ocean was ancient Atlantis, and that is where the physical ancestors of the present human race lived. Admittedly, they looked quite different from what modern science imagines. Yet we must by no means compare them to today’s apes; the Atlanteans were very different from modern humans, both spiritually and physically, but they were not apes. The ape species did not yet exist at that time; it emerged only at a later period, and only because certain human forms of that era remained stagnant at their then-current stage of development and subsequently degenerated to an even lower level. Darwinism, in fact, makes a mistake that is, however, very easy to see. If someone sees two people whom they hear are related—one an imperfect human, while the other, who has made good use of his abilities, is an excellent human—he will not say: “Since they are blood relatives, the perfect human must be descended from the imperfect one.” Yet this is precisely the conclusion drawn by Darwinists. Yet the perfect and the imperfect stand side by side: it is simply that one has evolved upward by making good use of his abilities, while the other has degraded them and fallen into decadence. So, too, do the apes—who branched off from humans—and humans themselves stand in contrast to one another. The ape that encounters a human appears to him as a caricature of a human, not as a human. — Thus, at the time of Atlantis, there existed a completely different type of human being, one that had developed to a higher level. Certain beings lagged behind. And because the Earth changes, they, too, did not remain at that level, but descended, atrophied, and became a caricature of humanity—the ape species. Thus, the lower beings are degenerate higher beings who have fallen into decadence.

[ 7 ] If we consider the people of Atlantis themselves, we can best understand how they lived by examining their spiritual qualities.

[ 8 ] What modern humans are capable of—logical thinking, arithmetic, and so on—all developed later. Logic and judgment—all of that was still completely foreign to the Atlantean. Instead, the Atlantean possessed a quality of the soul that has declined considerably today, namely, a memory that is almost incomprehensible. To calculate in such a way that he would have learned the rule “two times two is four” and, based on his own judgment, performed this calculation over and over again—that did not exist. But they could commit to memory what happens when you put two and two together and recall it again and again. This is connected to the entirely different physical nature of that ancient continent itself. If you want to imagine this continent in terms of its physical nature, the best way to picture it is to think of a mountain valley filled with dense water vapor and masses of fog. For the Atlanteans, there was never such a thing as water-free air. The air was always saturated with water. The ancient Atlanteans retained the memory of this when they crossed over to Europe; that is why they call the land where their ancestors lived Niflheim. It was not until toward the end of the last third of the Atlantean era that people began to become aware that they are an “I.” The potential for this had long been present, as had a certain sense of it. But to articulate it clearly and distinctly—“I am an ‘I’”—this was only learned in the last third of the Atlantean era. This is connected to the relationship between the etheric body and the physical body. If you look at these two bodies, you will see that they roughly coincide, though the etheric body extends slightly beyond the physical body. There is a point between the eyebrows that serves as a focal point for certain forces and currents of the etheric body. Associated with this is a very specific point in the physical brain; both must coincide, and upon this rests the ability to perceive oneself as a “I”; upon this also rests the ability to calculate, to reason, and so on. In the case of idiots, for example, there is no connection between these points in the head; they do not coincide. The moment they diverge, a person’s power of judgment is no longer properly functioning. For the Atlanteans, it was still normal for these two points to be separated. This is still the case with animals today; if you look at a horse’s head, you will find that the two points are still far apart. In the Atlanteans, the etheric head protruded, and the physical head had a receding forehead.

[ 9 ] In return, however, the Atlantean possessed something else, which was lost, however, with the integration of the physical body into the etheric body. He had developed a primitive, dim form of clairvoyance, even though he really could not count to five. All the judgment he possessed came to him from his memory of incredibly distant times. And that ancient clairvoyance presented itself as a certain intensification of our present-day dream life. Imagine this dream life heightened to the utmost degree, and you would ascend to the perceptual capacity, to the ancient, dim, dreamlike clairvoyance of the Atlantean. When the Atlantean walked through the countryside, he did indeed see people within their physical boundaries, much as we see them today, but in a certain sense this was still hazy and blurred; yet he saw something else as well. When you encounter a person today, you see nothing specific about their inner being, only what their expression conveys: if their expression is gloomy, you infer that they are sad and can thereby guess something about their soul. But when the Atlantean encountered a person who harbored ill will toward him, a brownish-red vision would arise before him, for example; if that person loved him, a bluish-red vision. A kind of colored vision corresponded to the other person’s state of soul; one could still perceive something of what was taking place within the person. If an Atlantean was walking and a terrifying reddish-brown mist appeared before him, he would run away, for he knew: there is—perhaps still miles away—most certainly a dangerous animal coming that wants to devour me.

[ 10 ] Ancient Atlantean clairvoyance even had a physical basis. For people regarded only their closest blood relatives as belonging to their own circle—but to a much greater extent than was later the case—comprising only very small communities that barely extended beyond the family circle. And the main thing was that people married within these small blood-related groups. This practice of marrying within the closest blood kinship resulted in such a mixing of blood that the etheric body could remain receptive to the spiritual. Had the Atlantean attempted to marry outside this blood kinship, his clairvoyant ability would have been suppressed; he would have become, in the astral sense, an idiot. Remaining within the blood brotherhoods was a matter of morality and ethics. Before one truly felt one’s individual self, one would say of the entire blood brotherhood: “That is me.” — Just as a single finger belongs to the hand, so the individual human being regarded himself as belonging to the blood kinship. But there is something else that stems from this. The Atlantean remembered not only what he himself had experienced, but also what his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on had experienced, stretching far back through the generations, all the way to the founder of the family. Everything that had originated from that time and lived on was perceived as a single entity. This will show you just how remarkably developed the memory of the Atlanteans was. Everything was based on memory. We will hear later how humanity lost its memory precisely through the breaking of the endogamous marriage.

[ 11 ] Such a soul necessarily requires a completely different physical nature; it also requires a different environment, such as that ancient Niflheim remembered by the ancient Germanic peoples. By no means are legends and myths based on what is called folk poetry or the folk imagination. You can now see where these legends come from. Among the Atlanteans, there was still an ancient, dim form of clairvoyance; these events actually took place there, were later retold, and have been preserved—albeit often in a distorted form—in the legends and myths of the peoples.

[ 12 ] The migration of the Atlanteans eastward has been wonderfully preserved in the folklore of Europe. On the continent of ancient Atlantis, human beings could not say “I” in reference to their individual personalities. Therefore, there was no egoism there, which later formed the basis of social order. The Atlantean still possessed what the entire bloodline possessed, and he felt himself to be merely a member within that bloodline. Then the migration to the East began. The sense of “I” emerged more and more in human beings, and with it, selfishness. Before that, human beings lived much more in the outer world than in their inner world; nature still belonged to them. Human beings felt as though they were within nature, belonging to it. Now, with the attainment of ego-consciousness, the world around them grew ever more confined; they separated themselves from it more and more, became ever more alien to it, and the ego emerged ever more strongly. This was linked at the same time to a natural process. When the ancient Atlantean looked up at the sky, he could not see the sun as we see it; dense masses of fog filled the air. He beheld a mighty halo of rainbow colors whenever he looked at the sun or the moon. Then came the time when the Atlantean saw the sun and the moon for what they were. But there was one phenomenon the Atlantean did not yet know at all: the rainbow itself. It was only when the waters of Atlantis receded from the air, and a balance of rain and sunshine began to form as it does today, that people came to know the reality of the rainbow. In that water-saturated atmosphere, there were no rainbows. Now recall that the great Atlantean flood uncovered vast tracts of land; this uncovering of vast tracts is magnificently preserved in legend and especially in the Bible. Just consider the profound truth contained in the Bible when you read: “And Noah saw the rainbow when the waters had receded.” It was only when the air was cleansed of the ancient Atlantean mists that the sun emerged for humanity in its free, present-day form. This occurred in parallel with the constriction, the tightening of the human being into its selfhood, its “I-ness.” — For reasons that run deep, spiritual wisdom refers to the light flooding through space as “etheric gold,” and gold is regarded as sunlight that has become dense. The ancient Atlanteans knew from their Atlantean teachers that sunlight and gold were connected, and this was the image they received: “The sunlight—the sun’s gold—is emerging!” It envelops you with the ring that separates the self, causing you to no longer feel at one with nature. — Among the Atlanteans, the self was still scattered among the misty clouds; now it wraps itself around the human being like a ring.

[ 13 ] The mists of Atlantis leave the air, are pressed downward, and appear as the rivers in the West. For the Atlantean descendant, the Rhine itself is nothing other than the masses of mist that have sunk and are now flowing downward. In the Rhine, he sees the masses of water that were still permeated by sunlight; he sensed the sun’s gold in the Rhine—the sun’s gold that had worked in an unselfish, primordial way in ancient Atlantis. That was the Nibelung treasure in the Rhine to him, and he regards as an enemy anyone who wants to claim the Nibelung treasure for themselves.

[ 14 ] Richard Wagner was not clearly aware of this, but was inspired by this powerful, all-encompassing fact, which he portrayed even in his music. Recall the prelude to Rheingold: what is the powerful pedal note in E-flat major other than the moment when the “I” makes its impact on humanity? But just as the plant is unaware of the laws by which it grows, so too does the poet have no need for such knowledge. This is how we must view the creative artist, who is inspired by forces standing behind him. Here, a significant artist has sensed what must be reintegrated into humanity. — Thus we see how provision has been made for the same spirit that underlies “theosophy” to flow into culture through art as well. It happens from two directions. Thus one must view life as a whole.

[ 15 ] We have now traced humanity back to Atlantis. Let us consider a few more details. In those days, houses were not built as they are today; instead, people were able to make much greater use of what nature itself provided. Massive rock formations, which had been reshaped using the trees found there, were joined together so that houses with a natural appearance served as people’s dwellings. The further back we go, the more we find that people were endowed with clairvoyant powers; the more we encounter a pictorial consciousness in them. In images, they see the feelings of the beings around them rising before their souls in a visionary way. Willpower, too, was developed quite differently in the early days of the Atlanteans. Today, your will can spread your fingers; this is something connected to the power of imagination as we know it today. In the early Atlantean period, the body was still a much softer mass. The Atlantean could not only extend his fingers but also make them longer or shorter; he could easily have made his hand grow. If he had a plant that was small, he could make it grow larger through an effort of his will. He had a kind of magic at his disposal. He also had a peculiar relationship with the animal world: he perceived things that could no longer be perceived later on. With his gaze, he could exert a fascinating power over animals.

[ 16 ] If we go back even further, we arrive at a time when even Atlantis did not yet exist, when humans lived on a continent called Lemuria. South of present-day Asia, this continent stretched all the way to Africa and Australia; our ancestors inhabited it when they were still Lemurians. They had much more delicate physiques than the Atlanteans, and their willpower was far more powerfully developed than that of the Atlanteans. On the other hand, the ground beneath the Lemurians was quite unstable: it was constantly thrown into turmoil by eruptions and volcanic forces. This ancient Lemuria was a sort of “Land of Fire.” If we go even further back to its beginnings, we arrive at a point in time when the skeletal system was only just beginning to emerge from the boneless mass. Then we enter the era when the Earth had not yet formed the mineral kingdom as we know it today: everything that is now found within the mountains was then in a state of constant flow and ebb.

[ 17 ] And the further back we trace the course of Earth’s evolution, the higher the temperatures we encounter. We then arrive at times when the formations that are now solid land flowed just as mercury or lead would flow today at a higher temperature. The process of solidification did not begin until the time of the Lemurians. The misty masses become denser and denser. We are no longer dealing merely with a sea of mist, but with a dense, glowing sea of water vapor in which all manner of substances are dissolved and swirl back and forth. However, in certain parts of this water vapor, conditions already existed that allowed the human ancestors of that time to live; it was just that the beings were of a completely different nature back then. We thus arrive at a point in time when human beings lived in a kind of primordial sea, in a warm, watery-fiery element. The Earth’s core was as if surrounded by a primordial sea, containing the seeds of everything that would later develop. This, then, was the state of the Earth immediately after the Moon had broken away and become independent.

[ 18 ] We have gained insight into a process leading up to the point when, first, the Sun separated from the Earth and the Moon, then the Moon separated from the Earth, leaving the Earth in the state I have just described to you.

[ 19 ] Tomorrow we will take another look at this process, which we have just pieced together from two different perspectives, as well as at the subsequent development of humankind and the Earth up to the present day.