The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Today we will take a somewhat more in-depth journey into the cosmos, during which we will gain insight into the inner workings of world development on a grand scale, and at the same time into the intimate connection between this grand-scale world development and human development on Earth. After all, nothing in the world exists in isolation. Tracing these complex interrelationships in the universe naturally requires a great deal of time for human beings, and it is only gradually, so to speak, that one gains insight into the inner workings of the universe.

[ 2 ] You have seen from previous lectures how certain beings that inhabit other celestial bodies are related to our own lives, how they influence what we call our lymphatic fluid, what we call our nutritive fluid, and indeed often what flows in and out of us through our senses as sensory perception. From this alone, you could deduce how the spirit exerts its influence far and wide throughout the cosmos.

[ 3 ] Today we want to look at the matter from yet another perspective, and to do so, let us first recall what we have often emphasized: that our Earth, much like human beings themselves, has undergone various incarnations and will continue to undergo various incarnations.

[ 4 ] We generally look back on three incarnations of our Earth: the incarnation immediately preceding the present state, which we call the ancient—not our own—“Moon”; then to another incarnation, which we call the “Sun,” and to one even further back, which we call “Saturn.” And we look forward prophetically to the time when our Earth will transform into a “Jupiter,” a “Venus,” and a “Vulcan.”

[ 5 ] We have thus outlined the successive incarnations of our earthly planetary life. If you reflect a little on this sequence of stages in the evolution of our own Earth, you can see from it what we in occult science call a “Sun,” around which—when it appears to us as our present-day Sun does—a series of planets orbits. When we also speak of a planetary existence as a “Sun” and say that our Earth itself was a “Sun” in an earlier stage of development, we are, in a certain sense, saying that this Sun, which today forms the center of our planetary system, was not always a Sun. It has, so to speak, advanced to the rank of a Sun, to the dignity of a Sun in the universe. It was once united with the substances and forces that existed in our primordial Earth; it took, as it were, the best of these—that which already contains the highest potential for development—separated itself from the Earth, and left behind us and a number of forces that are destined for a slower development. It took higher beings with it and, together with these higher beings, placed itself at the center of our solar system. So what is in the Sun today was, two stages earlier, merely a planetary existence and has advanced from planetary existence to that of a fixed star. From this you can see how everything in the universe is changeable and in a state of development. A Sun is not a Sun from the very beginning. A fixed star did not simply become a fixed star; rather, it first had to undergo the lower school of planetary existence.

[ 6 ] Now, of course, you might ask me: What happens next when such a fixed star continues to evolve? Just as the fixed star—the solar existence—has risen from a planetary existence, so too does its evolution in the cosmos continue. However, we will understand this further development even better if we take a brief look at the ongoing evolution of our Earth.

[ 7 ] It is true that our Earth has separated from the Sun for a certain phase of its cosmic evolution. The Sun, so to speak, is racing forward along a path of rapid evolution with its beings. Our Earth, with its entities, is now following a different course. But these beings and the entire Earth will one day reach a point—after having been given the opportunity, in a separate existence, to complete their present evolution—where they will rejoin the solar beings; for our Earth will reunite with the Sun. Indeed, even in our present Earth stage, it will reunite with the Sun, just as it separated from the Sun during the course of Earth’s evolution. But then it must separate once more during the Jupiter phase. The beings of Earth must undergo this Jupiter phase while separated from the Sun. Then a reunion will follow, and during the Venus phase, our Earth will be permanently united with the Sun, permanently absorbed into it. During the Vulcan phase, our Earth will have become a sun within the Sun itself and will have contributed a part to the Sun’s evolution—a phase of existence that the beings who have always remained in the Sun, even though they are higher, could never have attained on their own. Earthly existence had to come about so that human beings could develop as they have, with that everyday consciousness that alternates between waking and sleeping. For this is connected with the separation from the Sun. Beings who live perpetually in the Sun do not experience day and night. This sensory consciousness—which we call the bright “day consciousness,” and which will develop into higher states in the future—brings the experiences of the physical external world into the Sun’s evolution. Through this, we also give something to the beings of the Sun, enriching them. And from what is achieved on Earth—augmented by what is attained on the Sun—arises the volcanic state of being. This volcanic state is already a higher state than our present solar state. Thus the Earth develops, and thus the Sun continues to develop, until they can unite in the volcanic evolution.

[ 8 ] Now you may ask me further: What happens next in cosmic evolution with this sun once such a planet has evolved into a sun? We may say that our Earth itself, once it has attained its Venusian state, has become a sun, and on Venus all beings are solar beings; indeed, they are even more so than the beings of today’s sun. What, then, becomes of such an entire planetary evolution?

[ 9 ] As you can see, what we are about to discuss will seem quite grotesque and sound twisted to all those whose concepts have become fixed within what is called modern astronomy. But it is true; it is the reality of cosmic evolution: When a planet such as our Earth has ascended to the state of a sun, when it has gradually united with its sun and the whole ascends even beyond the state of a sun, then something emerges from this as an even higher stage of evolution—something you can also perceive in the sky to a certain extent: Then what we today call the “zodiac” emerges; this is the higher stage beyond the development of fixed stars. So when beings are no longer confined to a mere fixed star, but expand their own development so powerfully that it extends beyond fixed stars—so that the fixed stars lie like bodies embedded within them—then this higher stage of development is the zodiacal development. In fact, the forces that act from a zodiac sign upon a planetary system have themselves previously developed within a planetary system and have advanced to the stage of a zodiac sign.

[ 10 ] And now think back to the ancient Saturn evolution, to the first incarnation of our Earth. This Saturn, so to speak, once shone in outer space as the first dawn heralding our planetary existence. As you know, it was on this ancient Saturn that the first rudiments of our physical body developed. Even in its most solid state, this Saturn was by no means as solid—as physically solid—as our Earth is today. It had a fine, ethereal existence. What permeates all beings today as warmth—what is called “fire” in occultism—was its matter. And we can picture the situation this way: surrounding this Saturn—this first dawn-like state of our planetary existence—were the signs of the zodiac, though not yet as they are today. At that time, these zodiac signs were arranged around the ancient Saturn in such a way that one could scarcely distinguish the individual stars from one another. They shone only dimly, much like streaks of light spreading out from Saturn in a striped pattern. The easiest way to picture this is to imagine this ancient Saturn—just as our Earth is surrounded by the zodiac—surrounded by streaks of light. And in the course of Earth’s own evolution, these masses of light condensed into the present-day stellar masses of the zodiac, so that—to use an abstract term—the zodiac has differentiated itself from the original masses of fiery streaks. And where did this mass of fiery streaks itself originate?

[ 11 ] It arose from the ancient planetary system that preceded our own planetary system. Saturn, too, was preceded by planetary developments in an era that—if we are speaking in truly astronomical-occult terms—we can no longer even describe as “time” in our sense of the word, for it had a somewhat different character than our “time.” We can say that, for today’s human imagination and for today’s human concepts, it is such a fabulous concept that we have no word at all to express it. But we can say, by way of analogy, that the forces that preceded our planetary system in an earlier planetary existence dissolved into the bands, and only from a small portion of that matter was this first dawn-like state of the Earth—the ancient Saturn—gradually condensed within, while the forces present in the zodiac shone down from the cosmos.

[ 12 ] There is something peculiar about comparing planetary existence with zodiacal existence. The occultist uses two words to describe the difference between planetary existence and zodiacal existence. He says: Everything united within the zodiac is characterized by “duration”; that which is united in planetary existence is characterized by “time.” You can get an idea of what this means if you recall that, for concepts of vast, far-reaching scope, the zodiac remains unchanged. Each individual planet can undergo developmental epochs that are vastly and sharply different from one another, changing significantly; but what operates up there in the zodiac remains relatively permanent and fixed. Of course, these concepts must be understood only relatively. If we then extend our concepts even further, the only difference in these changes lies in their speed. The changes in the zodiac occur slowly; the changes in the planetary world and even in the existence of the fixed stars occur very rapidly in relation to the events in the zodiac; thus, it is really only a relative difference. We might almost say that, from the perspective of all human concepts, planetary existence is the sphere of finitude, while zodiacal existence is the sphere of infinity. As mentioned, this is relative, but for the time being it suffices for human understanding.

[ 13 ] So let us say this, and I ask you to give it very serious consideration: That which has been active in a planetary existence—that which has become the Sun—ascends into a celestial existence, into the existence of the zodiac. And once it has reached this zodiacal existence, what does it do? Then it sacrifices itself! — and I ask you to take this very word to heart. In a mysterious way, the very first dawn state of the Earth—the ancient Saturn—arose through a sacrifice of the zodiac. The forces that coalesced the first subtle Saturn mass were the forces that streamed down from the zodiac and brought about the first embryonic form of the physical human being on Saturn. And this process continued ever onward; for you must not imagine that this happens only once! Essentially, it happens continuously that within what we call a planetary system, the forces that have developed to a higher stage—after having themselves passed through a planetary system—are sacrificed. We can almost say this: What first exists within a planetary system develops into a solar existence, then into a zodiacal existence, and then attains the ability to become creative itself—to sacrifice itself within a planetary existence. And continuously, forces “rain down” from the zodiac into planetary existence, and continuously they rise again; for that which is itself to become the zodiac for us must, after all, gradually rise again. We may therefore say that the distribution of forces on our Earth is such that, on the one hand, there are descending forces, and on the other, ascending forces—from and toward the zodiac. This is the mysterious interplay of the zodiac with our Earth. Forces descend; forces ascend. These are the steps of the mysterious “heavenly ladder” upon which forces descend and ascend. They are alluded to in various ways in religious scriptures; you will also find them alluded to in Goethe’s Faust:

How the heavenly forces ascend and descend
And pass the golden buckets to one another ...

[ 14 ] From the perspective of our understanding, of our human perception, these forces began to descend with the Earth’s Saturn phase, and by the time the Earth reached its midpoint, the process had already begun whereby the forces gradually began to rise again. And now we have reached the point where we have, so to speak, passed the midpoint of our evolution. At the midpoint of our evolution, we were, in fact, right in the middle of the Atlantean epoch; and what human beings have gone through since the Atlantean epoch actually extends somewhat beyond the midpoint of our evolution. So we may say that, in a certain sense, more forces are already ascending today than descending from the zodiac.

[ 15 ] So when you think of the entire zodiac, you must imagine that some forces descend from this zodiac, while others ascend. We group together those forces that are currently in a state of ascending development—since they also belong to these constellations—under the constellations of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and Libra. These are the seven constellations that correspond to the ascending forces. About five constellations correspond to the descending forces: Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. So you can see how forces pour down and rise from the zodiac—how the seven ascending constellations correspond to the five descending constellations. The forces that ascend also correspond, within the human being, to the higher aspects of his being—the higher, nobler qualities. The forces that are in a descending phase of development must first pass through the human being; they must first attain that stage within the human being through which they, too, can become ascending forces.

[ 16 ] In this way, you will come to understand how everything in the cosmos can interact with one another, how everything in the cosmos must be interconnected and have a certain relationship. But we must firmly hold fast to the fact that this interaction is always taking place, is always present. So that, no matter at what point in our development we find ourselves, we can always say to ourselves: Yes, there are certain forces present right now that flow into and out of the human being—forces that descend and forces that ascend. For each of these forces, there comes a moment when they transform from descending forces into ascending ones. All forces that become ascending forces are first descending. They descend, so to speak, down to the human being. Within the human being, they gain the power to ascend.

[ 17 ] When our Earth was at the midpoint of its evolution, having passed through three planetary stages of existence: Saturn, Sun, and Moon—and had arrived at the fourth planetary state, with the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan states still ahead of it—it is thus, as “Earth,” in the middle of its existence—it had to pass through three “states of life,” also called “rounds.” It has gone through three of them; it is now in the fourth stage of life. Then it had to pass through three “stages of form”—the arupic, the rupic, and the astral—until it reached physical existence. Thus, with regard to the stages of form as well, it is in the middle of its development. As the physical Earth, in the fourth state of form of the fourth state of life of the fourth planetary existence, it has had to pass through three races: the first, the Polar race; the second, the Hyperborean race; and the third, the Lemurian race. The Atlantean race is the fourth. During the Atlantean race, humanity was precisely in the middle of those developments of which we are speaking. Since the middle of the Atlantean period, humanity has moved beyond this midpoint, and since the middle of the Atlantean race, the time has come when, for human beings, those states in which there is an excess of ascent have only just begun. If we were to measure the ratio of descending and ascending forces to the zodiac before the middle of the Atlantean period, we would have to say: there is a balance. We would then have to speak differently and list the ascending forces as: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo. We would have to count Libra among the other group, those that are in descent.

[ 18 ] However, there is something else connected with all of this. You must be clear that when we speak of such cosmic processes, we are not speaking of physical or etheric bodies, but of beings that inhabit the celestial bodies in question, which we name. When we speak of the human being from the perspective of spiritual science, we say that the complete human being we have in mind—and indeed, the only one we can have in mind—is a sevenfold being consisting of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the “I,” the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being. Today, the human being is not yet complete, but will be so when his sevenfold being has reached full development. However, in the vast universe there are not only beings such as the human being is in his present stage of development. There are other beings, for example, those of whom we cannot say that they have a physical body as the lowest member, as modern humans do. There are beings for whom we must count the members differently. We can list the members of the human being as follows:

7. Spiritual Being
6. Life Spirit
5. Spiritual Self
4. I
3. Astral Body
2. Etheric Body
1. Physical Body.

[ 19 ] Now there are beings whose lowest member is the etheric body; these, too, are seven-fold beings, who then have an eighth member above the spiritual human. For them, it begins with the etheric body, the astral body, and so on, and ends with a member that lies above our Atma, above the spiritual human being. There are other beings whose lowest member is the astral body; in return, they have an eighth and a ninth member above the spiritual human being. There are beings whose lowest member is the “I”; that is, in our sense, they do not have a physical body, an etheric body, or an astral body, but rather reveal themselves in such a way that the “I” pushes outward without the three sheaths—beings, in other words, who send “I’s” outward in every direction. They, in turn, have an eighth, ninth, and tenth member; these are described in the Apocalypse as “beings entirely full of eyes.” Then there are beings that begin with the spiritual self, with Manas, as their lowest member. They have an eleventh member. And finally, there are beings that begin with the life spirit; they then have a twelfth member. There are thus beings who, just as human beings have a physical body as their lowest member, have Buddhi as their lowest member—and who, in turn, have a highest member that we can best designate by the number twelve. These are lofty, sublime beings who tower far above anything the human mind can even imagine. How can one even begin to form a conception of these wondrous, supremely exalted beings?

[ 20 ] If we wish to characterize human beings from a certain perspective, then they appear to us, in relation to the universe, as recipients. Out there, all around you, things—entities—are spread out; you perceive them, and you form concepts of them. Imagine if the world around you were empty or dark: you would be unable to form any perceptions; no things would provide you with concepts. You are dependent on receiving the content of your inner being from the outside. It is a characteristic of human beings that they are receiving beings, that they initially receive the content of their soul—their inner being—from the outside, and that things must be present if they are to arrive at any inner content. The human etheric body is structured in such a way that he could experience nothing within himself if he did not owe this experience—everything that occurs within him—to the entire world around him. These beings, whom I have just described to you, whose lowest element is the life spirit, are in a completely different situation. With regard to their life, these beings are not dependent on receiving from the outside; rather, they are centers of power that give outwardly and are creative. You know from the description I have always given you how the “I” also works into the etheric body, how the buddhi is nothing other than a transformed etheric body, so that the life spirit is, in substance, also an etheric body. Yes, the twelfth member is also an etheric body in these highly exalted beings, but an etheric body that radiates life, one that acts in the world not by receiving life but by giving it away, and is capable of continually sacrificing it.

[ 21 ] Now let us ask ourselves: Can we even conceive of a being that is somehow connected to us and that radiates life into our universe in such a way? This radiating life is one that flows continuously into the world, bringing life. Can we conceive of this?

[ 22 ] Let’s return for a moment to what we said at the beginning of today’s lecture. We said that there are ascending and descending forces—forces ascending toward the zodiac and forces descending from the zodiac. How did human beings come to be in a position where anything can flow upward from them at all? What has happened to human beings that something can flow upward from within their very being? He has come to be in this position because his “I” was first prepared over a long period and then continued to develop further and further. This “I” has been prepared for a long, long time. For, fundamentally speaking, all existence on Earth during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages—which created the physical bodies intended to receive the “I”—was a preparation for the “I.” There, other beings created the dwelling place for the “I.” Now on Earth, this dwelling has been created to such an extent that the “I” could take root within the human being, and from that point on, the “I” within the human being began to work on the outer physical sheaths from within. The fact that the “I” can work from within has simultaneously brought about the excess—the degree of ascending and descending forces that goes beyond equilibrium. As long as the “I” could not yet work within human beings, the ascending forces gradually developed up to the midpoint; and when the “I” took hold within human beings, the forces had reached a point where the ascending and descending forces were in balance. The emergence of the “I” in human beings means that the ascending and descending forces were in balance, and it is up to human beings to tip this balance in the right direction. That is why occultists have named the constellation that was entered at the moment when the “I” began to approach “Libra.” Up until the end of “Virgo,” the actions of the “I” had indeed been prepared in our planetary evolution, but the “I” itself had not yet emerged. Now, with the onset of “Libra,” the “I” had begun to play its own part, thereby bringing about a significant stage in its own development.

[ 23 ] Just think about what it means that the “I” has reached this stage of development: From now on, the “I” was permitted to participate in the forces belonging to the zodiac; it was permitted to exert an influence within the zodiac. It is absolutely true: the more the “I” strives toward the highest point of its development, the more it works its way into the zodiac. Nothing happens in the innermost core of the “I” that does not have consequences extending all the way up into the zodiac. That is absolutely true. And as the human being, with his ego as a human being, actually lays the foundation for developing up to his Atma or spiritual human being, he increasingly develops the forces that enable him to act upward into the scales of the zodiac. He will attain full power over these scales of the zodiac when he has “pushed through” his ego all the way to the Atma or spiritual human being. Then he will be a being who radiates something that transcends the stage of time into the stage of permanence, of eternity.

[ 24 ] As human beings go about their lives in this way, there are, however, other beings for whom what is, so to speak, the highest effect in human beings is the lowest effect. Let us now seek out those beings for whom the lowest effect is the same as Libra is for human beings in the zodiac. If we map out the human being in the zodiac, we find it extending up to Libra. The being whose very essence belongs entirely to the zodiac, whose forces belong entirely to the zodiac, and who manifests in planetary life only in its lowest link—designated by Libra—just as, for humans, the lowest link is designated by Pisces—this is the being which, as you can see, spreads life throughout our entire universe:

[ 25 ] Just as human beings embrace life, this entity radiates life throughout our entire cosmos. This is the entity capable of making the great sacrifice, and it is inscribed in the zodiac as the entity that sacrifices itself for our world. Just as human beings aspire toward the zodiac, so this being sends us its offering from Aries—to which it belongs just as Libra belongs to human beings. And just as human beings turn their “I” upward toward Libra, so this being pours out its essence over our sphere as a sacrifice. This Being is therefore referred to as the self-sacrificing “mystical Lamb,” for “Lamb” is the same as “Aries”; hence the designation of the self-sacrificing Lamb or Aries for Christ. Christ is now characterized to you as belonging to the entire cosmos. His I reaches as far as Aries; and when the I flows as far as Aries, he thereby becomes the “Great Sacrifice” himself and thus stands in a relationship with all of humanity, and in a certain sense, these beings and forces that are on Earth are his creations. In his entire being, he stands in the Sun and is connected through his creations to the Moon and the Earth, and his power lies in the constellation of the Lamb. Thus, the powers that enabled him to become the creator of these beings lie in the constellation of Aries or the Lamb. The designation “Lamb of Sacrifice” or “mystical Lamb” has been brought down from Heaven itself.

[ 26 ] This is one of the aspects, one of the perspectives, that one arrives at when, looking up from our narrowly confined existence into the realms of the heavens, one sees how the celestial forces and beings interact with one another in the cosmos. And through this, the forces that flow from celestial body to celestial body gradually become to us just like the forces that flow from human soul to human soul—such as love and hatred. We see soul forces passing back and forth from star to star, and we come to recognize that what is wrought, done, and acted upon by such forces in the cosmos is inscribed in the heavens for us.