The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday’s reflection began with the observation that in everyday human life, such a change of states occurs within the human being that, during the night—from the evening, when one falls asleep, until the morning, when one wakes up—one’s physical body and one’s etheric or life body remain in bed, while outside the bed lies what we call the astral body and the I. At the same time, however, we had to emphasize that what remains in bed—the physical body and the etheric body—could not continue to exist if a divine-spiritual astral body and a divine-spiritual “I” did not enter into them. In other words: The change in these states of human life in everyday existence consists in the fact that in the evening, when a person falls asleep, they leave their physical and etheric bodies with their human “I” and their human astral body; in their place, however, divine-spiritual astral beings and divine-spiritual “I” beings enter these physical and etheric bodies. During the waking state, the human being himself fills his physical and etheric bodies with his astral body and his I. That was the point we placed at the beginning of our discussion yesterday.

[ 2 ] The other, however, was what we gained through a comprehensive view of our entire human evolution through the earlier incarnations of our Earth—Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. We have also discussed details from this comprehensive view. It has become clear to us that, with regard to the progress of our Earth planet, a division has occurred since the Moon phase; that certain beings, who needed, so to speak, lower, less refined substances for their further development, split off with the ancient Moon; and that higher beings of a more spiritual nature split off as an earlier form of the Sun’s development.

[ 3 ] We then saw how both parts later reunited, how they passed together through a World Devachan or Pralaya, and then came to the development of the Earth. This Earth evolution, in turn, proceeded in such a way that a repetition of the Sun’s separation occurred, so that for a time we had the Earth plus the Moon as a coarser, denser body, and the Sun, with higher, more exalted beings, as a distinct, finer body. We have seen that if the Earth had remained connected to the lunar substance, it would have had to become desolate and hardened, and all life on it would have died out—or, rather, become mummified. At a certain point in time, the Moon—with whatever it now contains within itself—had to be cast out of the Earth’s evolution. As a result, a process of rejuvenation set in, as it were, alongside what was to develop as the human being. We have seen how the exalted beings who had made their progress on the Sun could not influence human substances and beings before the Moon had separated; but that they were then able to act upon them again in a rejuvenating way, so that the actual development of humanity was only possible from the moment the Moon had separated from the Earth. This separation of the Moon signifies something immensely important for the entire course of evolution, and we shall examine it in greater detail today. For now, however, we wish only to draw attention to how the two starting points of our discussion yesterday, so to speak, converge.

[ 4 ] Let us consider the human being as he stands before us in his daily life. There he is a being consisting of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I.” Now let us consider the human being during his nightly sleep, when he lies in bed, his physical and etheric bodies at rest. There, the clairvoyant consciousness sees how higher beings enter the physical body and the etheric body. Who are these beings? They are precisely the beings of whom we have said that they generally have their abode on the Sun. This is not impossible. Only someone who imagines everything spiritual in physical terms and wishes to apply everything physical to conceptions of spiritual beings could say: “How can solar beings who dwell on the Sun enter a physical and etheric human body at night?” — For beings who stand at such a sublime height that they inhabit the Sun, the spatial conditions are not the same as for those who are in the physical world. Such beings can very well dwell on the sun and yet send their powers into the human physical body during the night. We can therefore say: By day, the human being is awake, that is, he inhabits his physical body and etheric body. At night, he sleeps, that is, he is outside his physical body and his etheric body. The gods or other extraterrestrial beings are awake in relation to the human being’s physical and etheric bodies during the night. Although this is a somewhat figurative expression, it is nonetheless entirely accurate. We thus know where the beings come from who must enter our physical and etheric bodies during the night. And so these two points come together for us. But we will soon see that these beings are significant not only in relation to nighttime life, but that they gradually gain significance in relation to daytime life as well. For now, however, in order to understand the full significance of the Moon’s departure from Earth’s evolution, we must consider a few other things. Today we will also examine the other beings around us in terms of how they came into being.

[ 5 ] If we look back at Saturn once more, we can say: This Saturn consists solely of human beings. There is as yet no animal kingdom, no plant kingdom, and no mineral kingdom on it. The entire sphere of Saturn is composed solely of the earliest human rudiments. Just as a blackberry is composed of individual berries, so Saturn was composed of human beings. And whatever belonged to Saturn surrounded it and acted upon Saturn from that surrounding sphere. Let us now ask ourselves: Where did that come from which gave human beings on ancient Saturn the first rudiments of their physical bodies? In a certain sense, we can say that it came from two sources. Higher spiritual beings first poured out their own substance. A great sacrifice took place on ancient Saturn, and the beings who performed this sacrifice are called, in the sense of Christian esotericism, the “Thrones.” Human thought—and even human clairvoyance—can scarcely presume to peer into that sublime evolution which the Thrones had to undergo before they were able to sacrifice what could form the first foundation for the human physical body. Let us try to understand a little of what such a sacrifice means.

[ 6 ] If you look today at the being you know best—the human being—you will say: Human beings, as they are today, demand certain things from the world and give certain things to the world. Goethe summed this up very beautifully in the following words: “Human life flows in a metamorphosis between taking and giving.” Human beings must not only take physical nourishment from the outside world; their intellect, too, must draw its nourishment from the outside world. Through this, they grow and receive what they need for their own development. Through this, however, they also develop the ability to give back—ideas, feelings, and ultimately love. By taking something from the world and giving something else back to his surroundings, his abilities continue to rise higher and higher. He becomes a more discerning and intellectual person, capable of developing concepts that he can offer to the collective life of humanity. Human beings develop feelings and emotions that transform into love, and when they offer these feelings and emotions to their fellow human beings, they enliven them. We need only recall how invigorating love can be for our fellow beings, how one who is truly capable of pouring out love upon others can, through love alone, enliven, comfort, and uplift them. Here, a person possesses the gift of sacrifice. But however much we may still acquire in terms of such capacity for sacrifice, compared to the Throne, it is insignificant. Development, however, consists in a being acquiring more and more of the ability to make sacrifices, until it is finally capable of sacrificing, so to speak, its own substance and essence, and experiences it as the highest bliss to give up what it has developed as matter and substance.

[ 7 ] There are such exalted beings who ascend to a higher level of existence by sacrificing their own substance. A materialistic mind will, of course, counter: If beings have reached the point where they sacrifice their own substance, how can they then ascend to a higher level? After all, they are sacrificing themselves—there is nothing left of them! —That is what the materialistic mind says, for it cannot comprehend that a spiritual existence exists, that such a being is preserved even when it gives back what it has gradually absorbed. The Thrones had reached such a stage on Saturn that they were able to pour forth the substance they had acquired during their previous development. Through this, they themselves ascend to a higher stage of development. And what flowed forth from the Thrones—much like what a spider secretes to spin its web—was initially the foundation for the formation of the physical human body. Then another kind of being was added—not as highly evolved as the Thrones—which we call the “spirits of personality,” or the “primordial forces,” “Archaic Forces” in the sense of Christian esotericism. These Spirits of Personality, as it were, worked through what had flowed forth from the Thrones. And from the interaction of these two beings arose the first rudimentary form of the physical human body.

[ 8 ] This physical human body was developed over long periods of time. Then, as we mentioned yesterday, a “world night” or “world devachan” occurred, and the second incarnation of the Earth—the solar stage—came into being. Human beings emerged once more, and other spiritual beings now joined them: these were the “fire spirits” or “archangels” in the sense of Christian esotericism, and the “spirits of wisdom” or “Kyriotetes.” Their primary task was now the further development of what reappeared as the physical human body. And now the Kyriotetes—the Lords or Spirits of Wisdom—were able to sacrifice their substantiality, and what we call the etheric body flowed into the physical body. The Fire Spirits or Archangels worked on this together with the spirits of personality. Through this, the human being was now developed into a being of the value of a plant. We can say: On Saturn, the human being had the status of a mineral. Our minerals have only a physical body. On Saturn, the human being also had only a physical body; therefore, he was still in a mineral state of existence. On the Sun, the human being had the status of a plant; he had a physical body and an etheric body.

[ 9 ] Now we come to a concept that we must fully grasp if we are to understand the entire process of development.

[ 10 ] I always like to say in this context that there is an event in the cosmos similar to one that occurs in our everyday life, causing concern and even annoyance for parents: namely, that children fail to advance to the next grade, do not meet the requirements for a grade level, and must repeat the grade. Certain beings fall short of the goal of a cosmic stage. Thus, certain spirits of personality who should have reached the goal on Saturn have been left behind. They had not done everything necessary to impart to human beings the value of minerals and thereby bring them to their completion precisely at this stage. Such beings must then make up for what they previously failed to do during the next stage. In what way, then, could these spirits of personality who had been left behind work during the Sun stage? They could not create a being such as humanity was meant to be on the Sun—a being with a physical body and an etheric body. For that, the fire spirits were necessary. These spirits of personality could create on the Sun only what they had created on Saturn: a physical constitution of the value of a mineral. As a result, during the Sun era, their influence gave rise to beings that stood one level lower. These beings now formed a lower kingdom in relation to the human kingdom. These are the ancestors of our present-day animal kingdom. While our present-day human kingdom had already advanced to the level of plants on the Sun, our present-day animal kingdom stood on the Sun at the level of a mineral being, possessing only a physical body. Thus, our animal kingdom was added to the human kingdom in its basic structure. We therefore ask ourselves: Which of all the beings that surround us has undergone the longest evolution? Who is the firstborn of our creation? The human being! And the other beings came into being because the evolutionary forces associated with human existence held back that which could have become human at another stage and then, at a later stage, allowed it to develop into a lower being. Had the personality spirits that remained behind performed on Saturn the work they performed on the Sun, the animal kingdom would not have come into being.

[ 11 ] Similarly—and I need only hint at this now—the following occurred during the Lunar Age: Human beings ascended by receiving, through certain beings we call angels and through other higher spirits—the “spirits of movement”—in Christian terminology: “Dynamis”—the astral body. As a result, during the Lunar stage, human beings became beings on the level of animals. Those beings, however, which had emerged as a second kingdom during the Solar stage, now, for the most part, attained the status of plants on the Moon. These were the precursors of our animals. Then, again through spiritual beings who had remained behind in the manner described, came those beings that today belong to our plant kingdom. On the Sun, there was not yet a plant kingdom—only the human and animal kingdoms. It was on the Moon that the plant kingdom was first added. A mineral kingdom—such as the soil on which everything else stands today—did not yet exist on the Moon. Thus, the kingdoms developed gradually. The highest of the kingdoms, the human kingdom, developed first. The animal kingdom is, so to speak, an outcast from this human kingdom, something that lagged behind it. And what lagged even further behind became the plant kingdom.

[ 12 ] When the ancient lunar evolution was complete, the Earth’s evolution began. We have described how, during this Earth evolution, the Sun and the Moon separated from the Earth. During this time, all the seeds of the earlier kingdoms reemerged: the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and finally—while the Moon was still united with the Earth in substance—the mineral kingdom. It was precisely because the mineral kingdom was added as a solid foundation that the hardening and drying out occurred, which so desolated the Earth. For the mineral kingdom that surrounds us today is nothing other than what has been excreted from the higher kingdoms. I have pointed out before that you need only contemplate what modern science acknowledges. Then you will be able to imagine how the mineral kingdom was gradually excreted. Consider that coal, a true mineral product, is extracted from the earth. What, then, was coal a long, long time ago? It was trees that grew on the earth, plants that perished and were transformed into masses of stone, into minerals. What you now excavate as coal was once a mass of plants. So this is a product that has only recently been excreted; originally, plant beings existed in place of the coal. In the same way, you can imagine that everything else that makes up the earth’s soil has also been excreted from higher kingdoms. Just think, even today, certain mineral products are excretions from animal beings—such as the shells of snails, mussels, and so on. Nothing mineral existed in the past; it was excreted only in the course of time. The mineral kingdom came into being on Earth, and it formed because such beings were still present on Earth and were still acting there just as they had acted on Saturn. The mineral kingdom came into being entirely through the activity of the spirits of personality, and such beings are active on all higher levels. But if development had continued in this way, there would have been so many mineral intrusions, so many hardenings and densifications, that the entire Earth would gradually have become desolate.

[ 13 ] Now we come to an important point in the evolution of our Earth. Let us imagine how the Sun has already separated, and how, along with the finest substances, the beings have also departed—beings who are now spiritual entities on the Sun. We look at the Earth as it becomes desolate, as its mineral composition grows denser and denser, and how, as a result, the forms on its surface—including human forms—become increasingly withered. Even then, a certain change was taking place in the life conditions of human beings. I would like to illustrate to you, using the development of plants as an example, what was also happening to human beings at that time.

[ 14 ] From the unassuming seed, the plant sprouts in the spring, blossoms and bears fruit, and then withers again in the fall. What delights the eye during the spring and summer disappears in the fall, and outwardly, physically, only something unremarkable remains. But if you were to believe that during the winter nothing of the plant’s true essence remains, or if you were to seek it solely in the physical seed, then you would have a poor understanding of the plant. As it is today, the plant does indeed consist of a physical body and an etheric body, but when viewed clairvoyantly, it is also surrounded at the top by an astral entity, as if by a border. And this astral entity is enlivened by a force that flows to Earth from the Sun, from the spiritual essence of the Sun. To the clairvoyant consciousness, every flower is surrounded as if by a cloud. This cloud breathes the life that is exchanged between the Sun and the Earth. During spring and summer, as the plants sprout and grow, something of the solar being draws near and plays around the plants at the surface. When autumn comes, the astral being withdraws; it unites with the life of the sun. We may say: That which is plant astrality seeks out its physical plant body on Earth in the spring, incarnating itself—if not in the same body, then at least in the same one. In the fall, it returns to the sun, leaving behind only the seed. It leaves the seed, as it were, as a pledge, so that it may once again find its way back to its physical being.

[ 15 ] In the same way, there was a kind of exchange between physical human beings and the solar beings, even though the form of human beings was still primitive and simple. And there were times when the solar spirits acted in such a way that they enveloped human bodies in astral energy, just as plant astral energy envelops plants from spring to fall today. We can therefore say of these times that, in a certain sense, the astral being of the human being was united with the physical body on Earth throughout certain epochs, that it then withdrew to the Sun and returned again. Only the seed was left behind in what was physical.

[ 16 ] But the Earth became harder and harder. And then something came to light that is of great importance, and which I would like to emphasize in particular. Whereas in the past, when the Sun had only just left the Earth, it was still possible for the astral beings who left the Earth to reunite with their physical bodies when they returned after their separation, the ever-increasing influence of the Moon caused the body down below—which the descending beings sought to inhabit—to harden so much that they could no longer do anything with it. You have now described in greater detail what I was able to explain to you yesterday in more abstract terms. I said: The solar forces lost the ability to shape the substances on Earth. To put it more concretely, one can say: The substances withered away, and the beings could no longer find suitable bodies. This also led to the desolation of the Earth, and the human souls that wished to descend again eventually found that the bodies were no longer suitable for them. They had to leave them to their own devices, and only the bodies with the strongest forces were able to survive this period of desolation. This desolation reached its peak when the Moon was still inside the Earth and was just about to emerge. At that time, the souls that still wished to be human souls were no longer able to inhabit these bodies. Only a few people inhabited the Earth at that time. This desolation appears to be a gradual extinction on Earth. And one describes the conditions quite accurately when one says: When the Moon emerged, there were only very few people left who had endured the fact that what sought to unite with the forms below had indeed united.

[ 17 ] Now I must describe these circumstances in even greater detail. Let us return once more to the time after the lunar phase of development had come to an end, and the Earth emerged anew from the womb of the world. It did not emerge merely as the old Saturn did, but what developed there contained within itself the aftereffects of everything that had happened before. It was not merely physical matter that was connected to it, but also all the beings who had been active there. The fact that the Thrones united with Saturn means that they remained connected to the entire process of development; and they emerged again when the Earth rose once more from the darkness of the womb of the world. Likewise, the spirits of personality, the spirits of movement, and so on emerged again, as did the seeds of human, animal, and plant life, for all of this was contained within it.

[ 18 ] Our physical science puts forward hypotheses that are pure fantasies. Today, in the theory of the origin of the universe, it is posited that there was once a great cosmic nebula that extended beyond Saturn. Such a cosmic nebula consisting of mere vapors or mists is a fanciful notion—it never existed. If one had been able to see what was happening there with mere physical eyes, then one could indeed have perceived something like that; one would indeed have seen a gigantic mass of nebula. But within this nebular mass was something that physical eyes could not have seen: all the beings connected to this development! The fact that everything later took on structure and form did not come about through a mere rotating movement, but through the needs of the beings connected to the whole. You will only gain a reasonable understanding of these matters once you have completely broken free from what is today the conventional view—what is instilled in our children from the very beginning of school. There, children are told that in ancient times people had only childish views and ideas: Those poor ancient Indians believed in a Brahma who filled the entire universe! And a person like an ancient Persian believed in Ormuzd, the good god, and his opposite, Ahriman!

[ 19 ] And even the ancient Greeks with their whole host of deities—Zeus, Pallas Athena, and so on! We know today that these are all beings conjured up by the popular imagination, by a childlike conception! And even the gods of the ancient Germans—Wotan, Thor—are mythological figures; we have long since moved beyond that! We know today that such gods had nothing to do with the development of the world. In the beginning, there was a vast primordial nebula in outer space that began to rotate. First, it ejected a sphere from its mass. Then it continued to rotate; over time, a second sphere broke away, then a third, and so on. But these ideas are merely a form of today’s physical-Copernican mythology. This, too, will be superseded by another mythology. The advantage of earlier mythologies over this modern form, however, is that they are truer than the later ones, which have stripped away only the abstract and the purely external material aspects. One must keep this in mind time and again: it is quite convenient to show children how beautifully plausible such a world system forms. Take a drop of fat, cut a circular disc out of a sheet of cardstock, thread it through along the equator, pierce it from above with a needle, and place it in water; there it floats. Now you begin to spin the whole thing, “just as the cosmic nebula once spun,” you say. First, a flattening forms; then a drop breaks away, followed by a second drop, a third drop, and a large drop remains in the center: a small solar system has been created! And one can now make it quite plausible: Just as it appears on a small scale, so it also happened on a large scale. Those who engage in such speculation forget only one thing—which, on other occasions, can be quite nice to forget—themselves. They forget that they themselves are up there, turning it. The whole comparison would only hold true if such a brave professor were willing to say: Just as I stand here turning the little needle, so there is a giant professor out there ensuring that the whole thing begins to rotate and the planets break away, just as we saw happen with the drop of fat on a small scale. — In that case, it might still work.

[ 20 ] We know that no giant professor turns the needle outward, but that there are beings of all levels present, and that it is these spiritual beings who draw the corresponding matter toward themselves. The beings who required certain living conditions drew the matter toward themselves as they moved toward the sun, took it in, and formed their environment through the power of their spiritual forces; and yet other beings separated the earthly substance for themselves. It is the spirit that works its way into even the smallest material particle—into the atom, if we wish to call it that! And it is untrue to attribute a mode of action to mere matter. Only then will one understand what goes on in the smallest part of space—when one understands that spirit acts within even the largest part of space. And not spirit in general, of which one says, “It is simply, in general, spirit within the material,” an “universal spirit” or a “primordial spirit.” You could throw all sorts of things into that mix again. But that is not enough. We must recognize the “spirits” in their concreteness, in their details, and in their various life needs.

[ 21 ] And now I would like to add something to what we were able to touch on yesterday—the fact that the Sun separated from the Earth and the Moon, and that the Moon then separated from the Earth. This is correct in general terms, but this picture needs to be supplemented.

[ 22 ] Even before the Sun could separate, it became necessary for certain entities to set themselves apart into specific realms. What they separated off now appears as the outer planets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. We can therefore say: Within the general matter that contained the Sun and the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and so on were also present, and certain beings first separated themselves along with these celestial bodies. These were beings whose life needs could be met precisely through a life on these planets. Then the Sun separated along with the highest beings, leaving behind the Earth and the Moon. This process continued until the Moon was cast out in the manner described. But not all the beings who had gone with the Sun were capable of participating in the Sun’s development. If we may speak figuratively—it is difficult to find words in everyday language for this; therefore, it is sometimes necessary to speak in terms of comparison—then we can say: When the Sun split off, certain beings believed they could endure the journey of the Sun. In reality, only the highest beings were able to do so; the others had to split off later. And because these beings created special realms for themselves, Venus and Mercury came into being. Thus we see the separation of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars prior to the Sun’s separation from the Earth. Subsequently, Venus and Mercury split off from the Sun, and then the Moon separates from the Earth.

[ 23 ] So we have once visualized this development from a spiritual perspective. We have understood the evolution of our solar system in such a way that we have different beings on the various celestial bodies. Once we have visualized this in our minds, we can now also answer the question: What happened to those spiritual-astral beings who wanted to descend as human beings but found hardened bodies down below that they could not inhabit?

[ 24 ] Not all were able to unite with the solar spirits; nor were they ready to do so. Thus, the following occurred: Those beings who had to leave their bodies on Earth withdrew for a time to Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. While the Earth below becomes desolate, producing only bodies incapable of receiving human soul-beings, we see that the souls ascend to these planetary worlds to wait there until the time comes when they will once again find human bodies for themselves.

[ 25 ] Only very few—only the strongest human bodies—were capable of receiving souls within themselves in order to carry life through the lunar crisis. The other souls ascended to the other celestial bodies. And then the Moon was expelled from the Earth. As a result, the forces of the Sun were once again able to act upon the human forms. The human form received new vitality and became soft, supple, and malleable once more; and into these malleable human bodies could once again enter those souls that had been waiting on Saturn, Jupiter, and so on. Whereas these souls had previously been forced to leave Earth, they now returned gradually after the Moon’s ejection and populated the human bodies that were emerging anew through this renewal. Thus, after the Moon’s departure, we have a time when ever new bodies emerge. We have only a very small number of people who survived the Moon crisis. Humans have always had descendants. But when the souls came down, they could not make use of the bodies and allowed them to wither away. The human race gradually died out. But when the revival set in again, the descendants of those humans who had survived the lunar crisis were once more able to receive the souls from Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. The Earth was gradually repopulated with souls. And now you can understand what a significant, profoundly transformative event this departure of the Moon was. In fact, everything changed as a result of the Moon’s departure.

[ 26 ] Let us once again consider the development prior to the Moon’s emergence. We had to begin by addressing humankind as the firstborn of our creation. Humankind came into being as early as the Saturn era. The animal kingdom then emerged on the Sun, the plant kingdom on the Moon, and the mineral kingdom on Earth. But now, starting with the Moon’s departure, things take a different turn. If the Moon had not departed, everything on Earth would have perished—first the human beings, then the animals, and finally the plants. The Earth would have become mummified. Instead, the Earth was saved by the Moon’s departure. Everything came back to life and experienced a renewal. How, then, did this revival take place?

[ 27 ] The mineral kingdom, which was the deepest realm, required the least for this. The plant kingdom had indeed withered away to a certain extent, but it was also able to revive quickly. The animal kingdom, too, was able to develop gradually in a certain respect. Human beings were the last to come into their own, in order to receive the souls flowing to them from the highest regions of the world. Thus, the entire course of development is reversed after the moon’s departure. Whereas previously the human kingdom arose first, followed by the animal kingdom, then the plant kingdom, and finally the mineral kingdom, the mineral kingdom is now best able to bring the revitalizing forces to bear. Next comes the plant kingdom, which develops upward toward the highest forms; then the animal kingdom; and only finally can the human kingdom develop upward toward the highest forms. After the Moon’s departure, the entire direction of evolution is reversed. And the beings who, so to speak, have had to wait the longest to unite their spiritual nature with the physical are those who, in the highest sense of the word, have ascended to a more spiritual sphere after the Moon’s departure. Those who had completed their spiritual development earlier have remained at a less perfect stage. After the departure from the Moon, those who have remained behind appear first. You will easily understand why,

[ 28 ] Let us consider any human soul, or any spiritual being, that previously did not wish to incarnate because of its hardness of heart. If we translate this back into human language, its reasoning might have been something like this: Should I incarnate now, or should I wait a little longer? Let’s assume the Moon hasn’t been out very long yet, so conditions are still very harsh. But the being that wants to incarnate is in a hurry; it therefore descends under any circumstances and makes do with bodies that are not yet very far along in their development. As a result, it must, so to speak, remain at a lower level. Another being says to itself: I’d rather wait longer and remain in outer space for a while longer, until the Earth has further lightened and refined its physical substance. Such a being therefore waits until a later time, and in doing so succeeds in physically shaping the being into which it incarnates, physically molding it in its own image. Thus, all entities that incarnate too early must remain at lower levels. Those who can wait reach the higher levels. Our higher animals have therefore remained at the animal level because they were unable to wait after leaving the Moon. They had to make do with the bodies they were able to obtain at that time. Those who descended later could only form bodies belonging to the lower human races, which had died out or were in the process of dying out. Then came a moment that was just right, when the souls united with the bodies, and this created what was actually capable of human development.

[ 29 ] Thus we see a desolation of the Earth leading up to the departure to the Moon, then a revival of conditions on Earth following that departure, and from that point onward, a return of those beings who had left the Earth because it had become too inhospitable for them. But this now applies not only to the beings that constitute the higher human beings, but also to other beings who descended for purposes entirely different from the formation of human beings. Here, too, the point is that the right moment is always awaited so that such a being can take on a body on Earth.

[ 30 ] Let us go back to the Indian era. At that time, there were people at a high stage of development. Just as the souls descending from Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter sought out their bodies, so too did higher beings seek out bodies of a higher order in order to work within human beings. Take, for example, the great holy teachers of the ancient Indians, the Rishis: they made a part of their being available; certain higher beings took up residence within them. But other higher beings said: No, we will wait until there are other beings down there who are themselves undergoing a higher evolution. We do not wish to descend yet; we will remain above until human beings have made their inner selves more mature; then we will descend, for at present we find the inner lives of human beings only slightly prepared for us.

[ 31 ] Then, during the Persian cultural period, certain higher beings said to one another: “Now we can descend into the human inner being, as it has developed up to this point.” — And the same was true during the Egyptian period.

[ 32 ] But the being who was the highest among the solar beings was still waiting. From afar, he sent his powers down to the holy Rishis. The holy Rishis looked up to the one they called Vishva Karman and of whom they said: “Vishva Karman is beyond our sphere.” — He waited, for he told himself: “The human inner being is not yet prepared enough for me to find a place within it.” — Then came Persian culture. There, Zarathustra looked up at the sun and saw Ahura Mazdao in the sun. But still this exalted Being did not descend into the earthly sphere. Then came Egyptian culture and the culture of the people who had waited the longest. And there came the human being who had waited the longest, who had already developed his inner being through many incarnations. Then the solar being looked down, saw the inner being of this human being who dwelt within Jesus of Nazareth and who had prepared his inner being. The highest of the solar beings looked down and said: Just as the lower beings once descended to build up the bodies, so I now descend and take up residence within the inner being of the human being who had waited the longest. - Certainly, higher beings had united with human beings before. But the one who had waited the longest received the Christ within himself; at the baptism in the Jordan, he had reached the point where the very same Spirit, which until then had remained in the spheres of the cosmos, could descend and unite with his inner being. Christ had been in the body of Jesus of Nazareth since the baptism by John, because the individuality permeating Jesus of Nazareth had, through repeated incarnations, attained the maturity necessary to receive this high Spirit into a body thus imbued with the Spirit.

[ 33 ] This Spirit of Christ has always been present. But after the separation of the Moon, all beings first had to mature. First, little by little, the lowest beings emerged—those whose spiritual nature had been least able to wait—and then, progressively, higher and higher beings. And as human beings were able to develop their inner selves to ever higher levels, and when the time came that Jesus of Nazareth had attained the maturity to receive the Christ within himself, those who possessed the ability of higher vision could say: “I have seen how the Spirit descended upon him!” And what could the one upon whom the Spirit had descended say when he gave voice to what now lived within him? It was, after all, the same Being whom the Rishis knew as Vishva Karman. What would Vishva Karman have had to say about himself—not if the Rishis had spoken, but if he himself had spoken? He is, after all, the high Sun Spirit who works as a Spirit in the light; he would have had to say: “I am the light of the world!” — What would Ahura Mazdao have had to say if he had wanted to speak of himself? “I am the light of the world!” — And what did that same spirit say when a human being had become ready to receive him within himself? How does that which was once in the cosmos, on the sun, now speak from within a human being? “I am the light of the world!”

[ 34 ] What has resounded down to Earth from the heights of the cosmos as the innermost self-characteristic of the guiding cosmic Spirit—we hear it echoing from within a human being, for the Being itself has taken its place within a human being. And so it resounds from Jesus of Nazareth, when the Christ is within him, with good reason:

“I am the light of the world!”