The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today we will discuss a topic related to the broad, comprehensive overview of outer space that we undertook last time. In doing so, we will delve more deeply into spiritual development within the broader context of spatial and material development than we did last time. Last time, we saw how spiritual beings direct and guide that powerful process of development, which external physical science describes only vaguely, while theosophy or spiritual science describes it in detail.

[ 2 ] Last time, we saw how the individual planets—the individual bodies of our solar system—emerged from a common primordial substance, and we generally assumed that spiritual beings of the most diverse kinds are active in all of this development. We have also pointed out in other lectures how, in the field of spiritual science, we see in the individual bodies of our solar system not merely physical, material things, but the physical and material linked with higher and lower spiritual beings—with beings of the most sublime kind who, for the benefit of the entire system, promote its development, as well as with spiritual beings of a lower order, who intervene in a hindering and destructive manner. Of course, we must be clear that what appears anywhere as hindrance and destruction is, on the whole, nevertheless integrated into the wisdom of the entire system. One might therefore say: If something seemingly destructive, inhibiting, and evil exists anywhere, then through the course of the whole, evolution is guided so wisely that even this destructive, inhibiting, and evil force is, in the grand scheme of things, redirected and channeled toward the good, toward the best. But what we wish to vividly bring before our souls today is the existence of such spiritual beings—and to begin with, let us consider spiritual beings of a sublime nature—who belong to the creative beings; whereas human beings will still have to work for a long time in the course of evolution before they rise to the rank of a creative being. In particular, let us consider a class of those beings who were involved in the formation of our solar system when the Earth, as Saturn, began its development in our world.

[ 3 ] Our Earth began its evolution as Saturn and progressed through the solar and lunar stages until it reached its present form. Back then, when our Earth was Saturn, everything on that Saturn celestial body was, of course, quite different from what it is on our present-day Earth. On Saturn, there was nothing that we would call solid rock masses or a mineral world in the modern sense; nor was there water in the modern sense, or even air. Rather, what existed at that time of the Earth’s present elements can only be compared to heat, to “fire,” as we say in occultism. Admittedly, you would not get a correct idea if you were to imagine that this Saturnian fire looked like a modern candle flame or a gas flame. You will gain a correct idea if you reflect on what pulsates up and down within your own body, if you reflect on the fundamental difference in this regard between a lower animal being—which has retained certain stages of development—and the human being. A lower animal derives its warmth from its surroundings. An amphibian has no internal warmth of its own; rather, it derives its warmth from its surroundings—it is as cold or as warm as its surroundings. Human beings have their own internal, constant warmth, just as they must. Their organism must ensure that, even when it is cold outside, they can still maintain their warmth at a certain level, and you know that when disturbances occur in this internal warmth—such as fever and so on—there is also a disturbance in the health of the physical body. You know, the point is that human beings possess an inner measure of warmth, and underlying this inner warmth one must conceive of something like a force that generates this warmth. This force is not water, not earth, not air, but an element in its own right, and this element existed solely on ancient Saturn, the first incarnation of our Earth. If you had gone for a walk in outer space back then—this is, of course, a fantasy, but it is a good way to form a picture of what it was like—you would not have seen Saturn; for in its earliest state, it did not emit any light at all. For this to happen, celestial bodies must first become a sun or enter into a connection with a sun in order to begin to shine. If you had approached the ancient Saturn, you would have noticed in its vicinity: there is warmth! You would have noticed at some point that it was getting warm, and you would have thought, “There is some space filled with warmth”; it would have been as if you were stepping into an oven. The existence of ancient Saturn would have made itself known solely through this power of warmth. This is a subtle material state of which modern humans—and least of all a learned physicist—can scarcely form a correct conception; yet it exists—a state finer than a gas, finer than air—and everything that existed in human beings at that time, namely, the first rudiments of the physical body, consisted of this substance. If you could strip away everything from yourself today except your body heat, you would once again find yourself face to face with those earliest human rudiments. But that could not be, because one cannot live that way. Today it is not possible to live with this mineral realm, water realm, and so on, in the same way that humans lived on ancient Saturn. Back then, it was possible. So today you must imagine yourself stripped of everything—for example, your bodily fluids, tissues, and solid components—and you must also disregard what you inhale from the air as oxygen. You must imagine that all that remains of you is the warmth contained in your blood—albeit, of course, in a completely different form: a physical human being consisting solely of warmth! It is a horrifying notion for a modern natural scientist, but all the more accurate and real for it!

[ 4 ] Such was the nature of humankind, of the human physical body. On this Saturn, none of the other beings that exist on Earth today—such as animals, plants, and minerals—were present. At that time, Saturn consisted entirely of human embryos, clustered together just as the small berries of a blackberry form a larger one: in the same way, the mass of Saturn was a large berry, composed entirely of small berries, which were human beings. This ancient Saturn was such a sphere. If we were now to examine the surroundings of this Saturn, just as we might examine the surroundings of our Earth, and find that it is surrounded by an atmosphere containing phenomena such as nebulae, clouds, and so on, we would not find things of a material nature in Saturn’s surroundings; but we would find in Saturn’s atmosphere spiritual substances, spiritual beings, all of which are of a higher nature than the human being on Saturn at that time in his earliest stage of development.

[ 5 ] Let us now turn our attention to a specific type of being associated with the Saturn existence. There we find the spirits of will, then the spirits of wisdom, the spirits of movement, of form, and of personality, the spirits of the Sons of Fire, and the spirits of the Sons of Twilight. Today we will focus in particular on the spirits of form, because, as we shall see, they played an important role at the beginning of our present Earth evolution. From the entire range of spiritual beings that existed in the atmosphere and surroundings of Saturn, let us therefore single out the spirits of form and be clear that these spirits of form have undergone a process of evolution right up to the present day, just as all beings undergo evolution. Just as human beings acquired the etheric body on the Sun, the astral body on the Moon, and the “I” on Earth—and thereby became ever more perfect—so, too, have the Spirits of Form undergone their own evolution.

[ 6 ] These spirits of form did not have a physical body on Saturn. Their nature there was such that, as the lowest level of their being, they possessed an etheric body comparable to the etheric body of human beings. We must therefore completely set aside the idea of a physical body and imagine the etheric body as the lowest component of the nature of the spirits of form. These beings then have an astral body, an “I,” a spiritual self or Manas, a life spirit or Buddhi, a spiritual human or Atman, and an eighth element that is one degree higher than what a human being can attain in the course of their evolution through earthly incarnations. These spirits of form thus act outwardly on Saturn through their etheric body, just as human beings act outwardly on Earth through their physical body. They do not have hands with which to work on Saturn, nor feet with which to walk, and so on; for all these are members of the physical body. But their etheric body manifests itself in such a way that life-giving juices, in very fine matter, continually stream in from the Saturn mantle. We can imagine Saturn as we have described it, with life-giving juices streaming in from all sides—continuously and from every direction—from the etheric bodies of the spirits of form, like a rain falling upon Saturn. Saturn itself possessed such a quality that it did not retain these life-giving essences, but rather, like a mirror, continuously reflected them back. This gives rise to—and now I will describe in more detail what I have already mentioned in earlier lectures—those mirror images of Saturn of which I have spoken to you. You can imagine the warm matter of Saturn continually receiving the rays from the etheric bodies of the spirits of form and reflecting them back again. We can roughly picture this by imagining how rain drips down from the clouds onto the earth, collects in the earth, and rises again as vapor. We must not, however, imagine this as involving an intervening period of time, but rather envision this process without any time in between: just as the luxuriantly surging life-sap flows in and is reflected back again, so that the formations of Saturn—the first rudiments of the human physical bodies—appear like mirror images. They are, in fact, composed of mirror images. It is a good image for what existed on Saturn as the physical blueprint of the human being: if you imagine a person standing before you and look into their eyes, you send your light into the other person’s eye, and your image is reflected back to you from their eye. So it was with the spirits of form in the vicinity of the ancient Saturn. They sent their life-giving essences down into the heat mass of Saturn, and their own form, their likeness, was reflected in this heat mass; and this reflected likeness was the first foundation of the human physical body. Even on ancient Saturn, the human being was, in the most literal sense, a likeness of his deity.

[ 7 ] If we now proceed on to the Sun, which arose from the ancient Saturn, this further development occurs because the spirits of form no longer need an etheric or life body; they shed the etheric body. They no longer radiate the life-giving juices downward, but instead shed the etheric body, and through this process, the first physical dispositions of human beings become imbued with the etheric body. The etheric body that human beings received on the Sun was initially formed from the etheric body of the spirits of form—a fragment of the etheric body of the spirits of form. These heavenly-spiritual beings were reflected in warm Saturn and, by offering sacrifices to it and creating images, gradually became more independent; they became capable of the greater deed of shedding their etheric body, offering it up, and now imbuing what they had first shaped as an image with life—with their own life force. If you could endow the reflection that shines back at you from the eye of your fellow human being with life, make it independent so that it would have a life of its own and could step out of the eye, you would be performing an act that the Spirits of Form accomplished during the transition from the ancient Saturn to the Sun. This was a significant step forward in our cosmic evolution.

[ 8 ] As you know—and I just want to mention this here—all legends and myths always have multiple meanings, and when we visualize the true facts of the world’s development in a spiritual sense, the myths reveal their truth to us in a surprising way. The same can happen now with a myth.

[ 9 ] Let us consider the progression that takes place from Saturn toward the Sun. On ancient Saturn, the life-giving forces would radiate in, be reflected back, and be reabsorbed by Saturn’s mantle and atmosphere. In ancient Greek mythology, the warm sphere of Saturn was called “Gaia,” and its atmosphere was called “Cronus.” Now consider the myth: The life-giving forces of Cronus continually radiate into Gaia—into Saturn—and then return, being absorbed. It is Cronus who continually devours his own children! One must sense this truth within a myth. If one does not sense it, one does not have the proper perspective on it at all. For just consider what it means that, in the distant past of ancient Greece, we find a myth that portrays this truth to us in such a wondrous way! There is only one possible explanation for such a fact, and that is this: The most advanced individuals of humanity, who guided the further development of humanity within the Mysteries, knew precisely what we proclaim today in Theosophy regarding the evolution of the world. Just as we speak of these things here, so too was it spoken of in the ancient mysteries of Greece; and for the masses, these truths were clothed in imagery, and this imagery constituted what we know today as myth. It seems strange, in light of such knowledge, that there are people who believe the truth has only been discovered by humanity in the last forty years, and that everything known in earlier times is merely the product of a childish imagination. But it must indeed be called a childish notion when people repeatedly emphasize how wonderfully far we have come today. - That is the truly childish notion!

[ 10 ] So we proceed from Saturn to the Sun and continue to examine the evolution of the spirits of form. They have shed their etheric bodies, “expelled” them from themselves, and imparted them to the body of the Earth, as human bodies have become interwoven with the etheric bodies of the spirits of form. They themselves now have the astral body as the lowest member of their being, and their higher development means that they have not only one member above the spiritual human being or Atman, but yet another member; so that we must now describe their being as consisting of the astral body, the “I,” the spiritual self, the life spirit, the spiritual human, an eighth member, and a ninth member—all of which are elevated above what human beings can initially attain in their complete seven-fold development.

[ 11 ] What kind of “outer aspect” do the spirits of form offer? The spirits of form surrounding Saturn have, so to speak, caused the “rain of life” to drip down upon Saturn. The spirits of form on the Sun manifest themselves through the impulses, desires, and passions radiating toward the Sun—through everything that is anchored in the astral body. Anyone who had sat on the Sun and looked out into outer space would not have seen lightning flash or heard thunder roll, but would have perceived all around them, in astral light, the passions of spiritual beings—passions everywhere—and you should not imagine these to be merely base passions. These passions, these emotions all around, continued to shape the planet from the outside in. If we continue to examine the myth, we can literally see within the evolution of our Earth the creative “Titans,” the creative passions that act from the outside in, from the spiritual air spheres of the Sun, when it was a planet.

[ 12 ] We now proceed to the Moon—the Sun transforms into the Moon. In the course of evolution, this means that the spirits of form now also shed their astral bodies and that their lowest member is the “I.” If we were to describe their nature, we would say: Just as the human being has the physical body as its lowest member, so these spirits of form, who live around the Moon, have the “I” as their lowest member, followed by the spiritual self, the life spirit, the spiritual human, an eighth, a ninth member, and then a tenth member. Thus, they present their “I” to the outside world. It is very strange, but it is true: outwardly, they present nothing but “I’s”; they are literally brimming with “I’s” outwardly. All activity in the vicinity of the Moon is as if you were encountering beings who express to you all their individuality, all their distinctiveness. This emanates from the Moon’s atmosphere. Just imagine for a moment that all your “I’s,” which are here in your physical bodies, were suddenly freed from the physical body; the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body would be gone, only your “I’s” would remain as the lowest member, and they could express themselves throughout space. Imagine yourself on the ancient Moon and your “I’s” out in the world, but in such a way that these “I’s” were embedded in the spiritual substances, with only the lowest members of the spirits of form acting in from the air: then you would have an idea of how the spirits of form express themselves as pure “I’s” coming in from space. They have surrendered the astral body they still possessed on the Sun to human beings, so that human beings on the Moon now consist of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body.

[ 13 ] To help us fully grasp this concept, let us sketch out a brief outline of it as follows. Let us imagine that this is the Saturn human, the Saturn human who possesses the first rudiments of the physical body. Hovering above him, we must conceive of beings who are the spirits of form, possessing an etheric body, an astral body, an “I,” a spiritual self, a life spirit, and a spiritual human, all the way up to the eighth member.

[ 14 ] Now we must consider the next state. In the case of the Sun-man, we have the physical body and the etheric body. The etheric body entered the human being because the spirits of form shed their etheric bodies and retained only their astral bodies, so that the spirits of form possess their astral bodies, their “I,” and continue upward through the ninth member.

[ 15 ] Then let’s go to the Moon. We have the human being, consisting of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, and the astral body came into being only because the spirits of form sacrificed their astral bodies and now have the “I” as their lowest member, followed by the spiritual self and so on up to the tenth member. As a result, everything we call “human” has gradually flowed down from the planet’s surroundings and been assembled from the outside. Everything that is inside was once outside and has entered into human beings.

[ 16 ] Let us now trace the development on Earth itself: At the beginning of Earth’s development, human beings possess their physical body as a predisposition, then their etheric body and astral body. The spirits of form come over from the Moon. Their lowest member is the “I”; they still sacrifice this “I” today and imbue the human being in its embryonic state with the “I,” so that the “I,” as it appears on Earth, is a life-giving force that now flows forth from the Spirits of Form; and the Spirits of Form retain the Spiritual Self, or Manas, as the lowest member of their being. If we were to describe them, we would have to say: The spirits of form reign above us in our surroundings within the Earth’s atmosphere. Their lowest member is the spiritual self or Manas, in which they live and weave, and they have sacrificed that which they still possessed on the Moon—the “I” that acts in all directions. This trickled down and fertilized humanity.

[ 17 ] Now let us follow the course of human life on Earth itself. One can point out the exact spot in the human being where the “I” is instilled; however, today we will consider this only schematically. The human being receives his “I.” Naturally, this “I” first encounters his astral body, which surrounds him like an auric sheath; there it first flows in, permeating this astral body. This occurs during the period we call the “Lemurian” era. In the Lemurian era, over the course of long periods of time—which vary from person to person—this “I” first enters the astral body and animates it. Let us now imagine this fully developed human being.

[ 18 ] At that time, the physical body did not consist of bone, flesh, and blood as it does today, but was a very soft structure, not yet containing cartilage, and this body was permeated as if by magnetic currents. So the physical body was there, then came the etheric body as the next layer, and then the astral body, which is fertilized by the “I.” We must imagine this fertilization as something like a hole, an incision in the astral body, like an invagination. This is indeed the case: something like an opening forms at the top of the astral body through the influence of the “I”—an opening extending all the way to the etheric body (see drawing on p. 74). This has had great significance and a profound effect, and the result is that the first dim perception of a physical external world arises. In earlier states, human beings perceived nothing other than what lived within them; they were, as it were, hermetically sealed off from the outside world. They perceived only themselves and what was happening within them. Only now did the view of a physical external world open up to them. Yet human beings were not yet entirely independent. Much was still regulated for him by other, divine beings with whom he was connected. It was not yet the case that human beings could immediately see everything around them, as is the case today; rather, because only their astral body was open, they perceived only through that body. It was a very dim form of clairvoyance, consisting in the fact that when, in those ancient times, a human being moved about on Earth, he perceived that which lay beyond his physical body—specifically, insofar as it was sympathetic or unsympathetic, useful or harmful to him. As he moved about in this way, he would perceive, for example, a bright red image that arose as an auric color image; for it was only his astral body that was open. Now, when a red image arose, he knew: there is a being nearby that is dangerous to me! And when a blue-red image appeared before him, he knew he could go there. Thus, he guided himself by these dim, clairvoyant perceptions. He perceived only the soul; he did not yet perceive what is present, for example, in today’s plants. He perceived only what existed as soul in other human beings and in animals—and, of course, the group souls as well. This, then, was the first fertilization with the “I.”

[ 19 ] This “I” gradually took on greater and greater form, in such a way that what entered the astral body as a fertilizing element permeated it more and more; so that the “I” was increasingly present in the feelings of pleasure and displeasure of the astral body. As the I thus spread throughout the astral body, what is referred to in my book Theosophy as the sentient soul came into being. It is the sentient soul that arose there. It is as if the fertilizing I spread its power over the entire astral body and thereby brought about the sentient soul.

[ 20 ] Now we must add one more important point here. We have just seen a fairly normal course of development. We have seen how, on the ancient Moon, the spirits of form radiated their lowest member—their “I”—into it, and how, when the Earth emerged from the Moon, they relinquished this “I” and thereby imbued human beings with the “I.” Now we know that certain beings remained behind on the Moon who had not completed their development there. What does that mean? It means they had not advanced to the stage where they had attained the ability to radiate their “I” and thereby endow human beings with it. They were unable to do so. They were still at the old lunar stage when they acted with their “I” into the Earth’s atmosphere. These were beings who had remained behind in the human environment and acted in the same way as the spirits of form on the Moon; in this way, these beings who had remained behind acted on Earth. In the Earth’s atmosphere, human beings were surrounded by I-entities that had not yet relinquished their I’s. These entities now strive to accomplish on Earth what they had to do on the Moon. As a result, human beings were exposed to influences that, under normal conditions of development, would not have affected them. These influences from the I-spirits radiated into their astral bodies. While his astral body was being transformed by the “I” instilled by the spirits of form, at the same time the “I” spirits—who had not reached the level of the spirits of form—radiated lower forces toward him than would have been instilled in him under normal development. These lower forces caused human beings to split into a higher and a lower part. Thus, through the infusion of the “I” by the Spirits of Form, we have the “I” predisposed toward selflessness, and through what is infused by the lagging “I”-spirits, we have the other “I,” predisposed toward self-centeredness and egoism. This is the “I” that is not yet ready to break free from instincts, desires, and passions. These penetrate it and permeate the astral body, so that two kinds of forces are present in the human astral body: selfless impulses, those that seek to ascend to higher realms, and those passions that are permeated by selfishness; these have entered the human being through the influence of the “I”-spirits and take root within him.

[ 21 ] Now let us continue to examine the development itself. We have seen how the astral body has been completely permeated by the power of the trickling-down “I.” The next step is that the etheric body is also taken hold of by this power, so that a kind of opening to the outside world is created in the etheric body as well. If we want to draw this, we must do so as if we had a physical body in the center, then an openwork etheric body that is completely filled by the power of the “I,” and then the astral body, which is also filled by the power of the “I.” Thus, we now have in the etheric body the force that seeks to go outward: the etheric body opens up to the outside world (see drawing).

[ 22 ] We are now dealing with the development of the human being during the first and second thirds of the Atlantean epoch. An ancient form of clairvoyance still existed at that time, but not in the sense that only what was useful and harmful, or pleasant and unpleasant, was seen in images; rather, something like living dream images appeared before people and lingered for a long time. For the etheric body is the bearer of memory, and since these people were not yet subject to disturbances from the physical body, they retained such images—which they absorbed from the outside—for an incredibly long time. Memory was, at that time, a particularly outstanding power of the soul. You can read in From the Akashic Records what people were like in this regard back then. It is, admittedly, still not a complete perception of the external world, but rather a kind of twilight clairvoyance. However, this is more comprehensive than perception through the astral body. It encompasses more, allowing everything to arise in powerful, clearly formed images—like a dream, yet already corresponding to external objects—whereas in earlier times the images served only to tell a person how to behave, whether to take this or that course of action. The external objects, however, were not yet seen.

[ 23 ] Now we move even further along and enter the final third of the Atlantean epoch. Now not only the astral body and the etheric body, but also the physical body are taken over by the power of the “I” (see illustration). The predisposition for a bulge develops in the physical body. The physical body bulges out, and surrounding it are the etheric body and the astral body. Let us now visualize the whole picture schematically; in the course of the next lectures, we will come to know the realities behind it. In a certain sense, then, this kind of bulging had taken place. The physical body took the “I” into itself. Between the eyebrows lies the point—I have spoken to you about it often—where the “I” is received. In connection with this opening, which comes about through the “I”’s permeation of the physical body, we must think in particular of the opening of the physical senses. The “I” permeates the eye and the ear; this is not merely a single opening, but a whole series of openings. All of this takes place in the last third of the Atlantean epoch, and it is only through this process that the physical human body is transformed into what it is today.

[ 24 ] We now call the transformed etheric body, as it took shape during the early Atlantean period, the “intellectual soul” or “emotional soul,” and we call the transformed physical body the “consciousness soul.” So here you have, as a result of evolution, what you will find described in my Theosophy, as it stands today. Here you can see how things have gradually taken shape.

[ 25 ] Now the physical body, too, is open to the outside world, and the human being is only now truly getting to know the external world; and now the conscious transformation of the astral body begins. Before that, everything was more or less an unconscious transformation, for the soul of consciousness is only now present. If we want to imagine this state, we must conceive of it schematically as follows: the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body are open; and through the human being’s interaction with the external world, an imprint is formed within them. This is everything that the “I” develops through interaction with the external world—what the “I” learns during this interaction. Now imagine that the whole of what the “I” develops in this way becomes larger and larger, and it is indeed the case—though this is a schematic representation, it corresponds entirely to the actual process—that this new formation, which the human being gradually develops, wraps itself around the astral body, unites with it, and then, in the course of development, transforms the astral body itself into the actual human

[ 26 ] Manas, or the spiritual self (see illustration). This is the work in which human beings are engaged today, as they transform their astral body into Manas, or the spiritual self, through what they acquire in their interaction with the outside world. We are still in the midst of this process at present. However, because the spirits of form have relinquished the “I” and instilled it into human beings, we are everywhere surrounded by these spirits of form as beings whose lowest link is a Manasic one—the spiritual self. So if we wish to search our surroundings for these spirits of form, for their lowest member, we find it in what we ourselves are gradually developing as the fifth member. What we develop as human wisdom—through which we must become ever wiser and wiser—we should find expressed in our surroundings as the lowest member of the spirits of form. Let us consider what more exalted, higher beings have created around us—things in which we have not yet a share. Let us look—as I have often mentioned—at a section of a femur, in which beams running back and forth are joined together to form a marvelous framework, so that we must say to ourselves: here, with the smallest amount of material, the greatest measure of strength has been achieved with wisdom! What humanity gradually attains through its wisdom, we see enshrined there. Humanity will gradually learn—what it cannot yet do today—to build bridge structures through its engineering art, which will be forms of wisdom, arranged as wisely as the thigh bones, acting as pillars, support the human upper body. The entire human body is structured with such wisdom—an expression and a revelation of wisdom—and when we go out into nature, this wisdom meets us everywhere. Let us take, for example, the structures that beavers build. There we see how beavers gather at certain times of the year, when the water reaches a steeper gradient, to construct a dam at a specific angle in the water, thereby holding back the water and creating a new gradient—all technically so well designed as if they had had at their disposal all the tools of mathematics and other sciences. Everywhere in our surroundings we find everything filled and imbued with wisdom—the very wisdom with which we ourselves will be imbued once we have fully developed Manas. This wisdom, which we find everywhere, belongs to the members of the Spirits of Form. Just as our lowest member is the physical body, so the wisdom we find all around us is the lowest member of the Spirits of Form. Then these Spirits of Form have Buddhi and Atman—corresponding to our etheric and astral bodies—and then the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh members. So you see, we are dealing here with highly exalted beings to whom we look up, and when we see the wisdom in our surroundings, we see only the last member of these highly exalted beings. In relation to these exalted beings, we are like an animal, a lower being that crawls around a human being and sees only the physical body on the outside. Please forgive me for this image, this comparison! We crawl around on the earth and see the wisdom that is to the spirits of form what the physical body is to us. Such a being is what we call the creative spirit in relation to human beings; for this creative spirit has instilled in them their “I.”

[ 27 ] Just as we rise to the Manas in the manner described, so too will we one day rise, as our development progresses, through the transformation of the etheric body: we will incorporate the life spirit, the Buddhi. In our environment, we find Manas, or the spiritual self, as the wisdom imbued in the world. Just as this is the lowest member of spiritual beings—the spirits of form—so, too, are there other beings connected to the Earth whose lowest member is not our fifth member, Manas, but our sixth member—that is, the life spirit or Buddhi. In our sphere, the atmosphere is conducive to such beings whose lowest link—as the link of higher beings—corresponds to our life spirit. And just as it is true that at the beginning of Earth’s evolution an external act instilled the “I” into human beings, so it is true that at a certain point in Earth’s evolution the first impression and influence of those beings appeared who gradually instill the full power of Buddhi into human beings. In the time when the “I” was instilled—in ancient, distant times—even after two thousand years, there was still little evidence of such “I’s” within human bodies. All of this happened gradually. It was only over the course of many millennia that this power of the “I” came fully into its own. One must never imagine that the instillation of the “I” was the kind of event about which someone might say: “Nothing special happened here; I do not acknowledge it; this is an event just like those that occurred before!” - If any strangely “enlightened” minds had lived on Earth two thousand years after the instillation of the “I” and had, for example, founded a form of materialism at that time, they would have said: “Oh, there are some among us who claim that a special power came down from heaven and advanced all humanity; but that is a dualism of the most reprehensible kind; as monists, we must explain that this is something that was already there before! — These things came about gradually and slowly.

[ 28 ] Just as at the beginning of the Lemurian epoch a tremendous leap forward took place through the infusion of the “I,” which only later made it possible to develop the spiritual self or Manas, so too is there an event of fundamental significance through which human beings will be able to develop not only Manas but also the life spirit or Buddhi within the whole human being. And this event is the Deed of Golgotha, the appearance of Christ on Earth! It may be that some people will deny this today; but this event is just as much an effect of the surrounding environment as the other was. Thus we see that we comprehend the course of the world from its spiritual side when we look into the depths of this world. We are gradually learning not only to lift our gaze beyond material existence; but wherever we look into the space of the worlds, we discover spiritual beings and their deeds, and through what we call theosophy, we come to know the deeds of these spiritual beings. We live, weave, and exist within these spiritual beings and their deeds.

[ 29 ] Next time, let’s take a closer look at the human organism and highlight how these features actually developed, now that we’ve examined them more schematically today.