The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] In order to fully grasp the task of our time and the course of our future development, we must take a look at the facts we already know. When we speak of the Earth, we mean everything that belongs to it from the perspective of spiritual beings. At the beginning of its evolution, it was not yet separated from the other bodies in our solar system. We include everything up to Saturn in our solar system, and just as physical science speaks of an ancient, vast globe from which the other celestial bodies separated, so too does spiritual research speak of the ancient, vast Saturn, which, extending far beyond today’s Earth, encompassed the entire solar system and consisted of interflowing heat. There was no air; the space in which this ancient sphere existed was permeated by regular currents of heat. These were the ancestors of us humans; our bodies at that time consisted of currents of heat.

[ 2 ] We can form a conception of this if we were to abstract from the human being what bones, nerves, and muscles are, and then retain only the warmth of the blood. So at that time, the human being possessed this heat substance; there was no mineral kingdom, but the human being was itself subject to mineral laws. That is what we must clearly recognize today as one epoch in the development of our Earth.

[ 3 ] Then there was an epoch when the Earth had shed the old Saturn, but the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth remained connected and formed a single body. At that time, human beings existed in an air-like physical form. All the power that comes from the Sun originated at that time from within the Earth. Everything came from within; the Earth radiated out into space. Only after the Sun had separated from the Earth did it begin to shine upon it from the outside. Thus we have a second epoch in human development in which human beings, though still air-like, nevertheless led a plant-like existence. ... [Large gap in the postscript; it describes the lunar state and the Polar and Hyperborean periods.]

[ 4 ] Now comes the third era, the Lemurian era, when the Moon emerges from the Earth and the beings of the Moon begin to influence it from the outside. It would be impossible to conceive of a vegetation cover on Earth without the forces of the Sun and the Moon interacting with it from the outside. If the Moon had remained inside the Earth’s body, the Earth would have become so rigid that human beings would have become hardened. It was only because the Moon had separated that the Earth was placed right in the middle between the Sun and the Moon; otherwise, under the sole influence of the Sun’s forces, the Earth would have embarked on a development that progressed too rapidly. Thus, we owe the right pace of development to our position between the Sun and the Moon. We now have a third stage, in which the Moon is already outside.

[ 5 ] These three stages are reflected in humanity’s post-Atlantean development. What took place on a grand scale during the Earth stage is reflected on a smaller scale in the post-Atlantean era. Thus we see how the outer cosmic processes of the so-called Polar Age are reflected in the first post-Atlantean culture, the ancient Indian period. Back then, during the Polar Age, everything was internal, within the Earth’s warmth body; and we see how the ancient Indians felt all of this within themselves. Therefore, their minds did not look out into the vastness of space, but they felt themselves to be one with Brahman.

[ 6 ] The Polar Age was followed by the Hyperborean Age, featuring a human race that came to possess an air-like body. By then, the Sun had separated from the Earth and now exerted its influence from the outside. This separation is reflected in the Proto-Persian cultural epoch, as Zoroaster proclaimed Ahura Mazdao, the Sun Spirit. The Sun Spirit is the guiding and directing principle of the Proto-Persian cultural epoch.

[ 7 ] And the third, the Lemurian Age, is reflected in the Egyptian period throughout the entire religious worldview. The teachings of Osiris and Isis can be characterized from a wide variety of perspectives and viewpoints. The most distinctive feature of these teachings, however, was the following: In the ancient Lemurian Age, birth and death did not yet exist at all. Human beings initially repeated the state in which they had been when the Sun had not yet separated from the Earth. At that time, they were in a spiritual body. Then, when the Sun was no longer united with the Earth, they developed an air-like body; but then the human body became filled with watery vapors. Before the Lemurian era, the human being existed only as mist and vapor, barely distinguishable from what swirled about as mist or fog—as changeable as clouds, constantly shifting just like today’s clouds. Thus, in those ancient times, human beings were not yet on Earth at all, but rather hovered above it. Fragments of this fine matter were constantly flowing away from the human being, welling forth from within it. The densification of human bodies did not begin until the Lemurian era. It was only as human beings became denser that what is called successive incarnations began. Only then did the soul and the body separate to such an extent that one can say human beings began to regard the external as a contrast to their inner being. Today, human beings distinguish between their inner and outer selves as the contrast between soul life and external life. During the Earth’s Solar Age, human beings perceived as their external world whatever existed in their surroundings as spiritual beings. Then came the time of the separation from the Moon; that was when the external began to separate from the internal. Thus the distinction arose between waking and sleeping: human beings alternated between states in which they were exposed to the Sun and states in which they were turned away from it. And so the time came when human beings began to perceive objects illuminated by the Sun. During the night, the power of the moon stimulated the soul life in such a way that human beings distinguished between a time when they perceived the external world and a state in which they sensed the forces acting through the moon in such a way that they became clairvoyant. Then human beings told themselves that through the spirituality dwelling in the moon they could perceive the spiritual world, which flowed inward into them through the forces of the moon. Thus, the lunar forces—as reflected solar power—were what conveyed the spiritual world to him, while during the day the external world became increasingly perceptible to him.

[ 8 ] This was reflected in the spiritual life of the ancient Egyptians. Osiris was regarded as the spirit of the sun, and Isis as the soul seeking the spirit of the sun. In this way, all of this was reflected in the cult of Isis in ancient Egyptian religion. Thus, religious life was a cult of the moon. Osiris is a solar being dwelling on the moon. He could be perceived clairvoyantly by the souls who sought him. But as human beings descended further and further into physicality, this physicality became like a prison for Osiris. As people became, in the true sense of the word, earthly beings, Osiris withdrew more and more.

[ 9 ] The Lemurian epoch was followed by the ancient Atlantean epoch, which is reflected in the fourth, the Greco-Latin culture. This culture thus held a worldview that had already been lived out cosmically during the Atlantean age. Human beings became increasingly solidified during that time. At the beginning of human development, the bones are merely hinted at as lines of force within the human being; then the human is an ethereal being, and later a gelatinous one. The forms of the skeletal system now develop more and more. In contrast, the soul force was correspondingly stronger at that time. The Lemurians, who in ancient times had viscous bodies, possessed much greater soul forces than the subsequent races. The situation was similar among the Atlanteans. If cannonballs had existed back then, such an Atlantean, for example, could have simply deflected a ball hurled at him through soul power, even though his physical body was not as dense as it is today. The Atlanteans were thus still much more ethereal in their physical form.

[ 10 ] Now, among the Atlanteans there were beings who did not need to undergo the process of evolution all the way down to our dense physical form. They were similar to humans, only more highly developed. Those beings were already able to reach their full human stage within these ethereal Atlantean bodies. They stand one degree higher than we humans, whereas humans must undergo the descent into dense physical embodiment in order to develop their sense of self.

[ 11 ] A reflection of all these beings can be found in the ancient Greek pantheon and in the entire way of thinking and feeling of that era.

[ 12 ] The deities of Northern Europe are, as it were, former companions of humanity, but not such highly condensed entities. The skalds still knew of them when they gave voice to their innermost thoughts. In ancient times, one did not need the Edda or any written records to prove that such things had existed. But had the God not descended in our fourth epoch, humanity would have forgotten its ancient companions, who remained vividly in the memory of many people as late as the 13th and 14th centuries.

[ 13 ] Now we are entering our own era. But now there is nothing left for us to repeat. People no longer have any memory of the past. We have seen how the old culture is always reflected in repetition. But now, in the fifth period, there was nothing left for humanity to repeat; the world would have been empty had the Yahweh-Christ deity not come in the fourth period and dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The fifth period would have become a godless period had Christ not descended into the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 14 ] Thus we see the Polar Age reflected in the ancient Indian period, the Hyperborean Age in the Proto-Persian period, the Lemurian Age in the Egyptian-Chaldean period, and the Atlantean Age in the Greek-Latin period. And now we shall see what is happening of significance in the etheric and astral bodies of those people who, in our era, take in the knowledge of the Christ event.