The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] In the two previous lectures of this series, it has been emphasized that supersensible perception is able to see the spiritual beings behind the details of the tapestry of sensory impressions spread out before us; that is to say, from a certain stage of spiritual development—or, let us say, from initiation— initiation, what is commonly called fiery, airy, liquid bodies, and so on, is transformed into something living, active, and spiritual. And yesterday we specifically mentioned that spiritual beings are also hidden behind the phenomena and facts of our own soul life, insofar as this takes place in the physical world. You may now ask yourselves: Is it the case that supersensible consciousness, where ordinary sensory perception perceives—let us say—heat, color, and the like, actually sees spiritual beings, so that we would then have the world before us in two forms—on the one hand as the outer sensory world and on the other as the spiritual world? And again, with regard to the inner world: Is it the case that in our soul life we have sensations, feelings, facts of conscience, and facts of thought, with spiritual beings standing behind them? Or is it different? That is to say: Does the spiritual world, in its outward expression, perhaps not completely coincide with the sensory world? — We could also pose the question this way: Do we find all possible spiritual entities when we start from what the outer expression in the physical world is, or are there other spiritual entities that have no expression at all in the physical world? We could raise this question, and it is answered in the following way for the supersensible consciousness: It is true that behind every external perception there lies a spiritual being or a spiritual fact; however, as the supersensible consciousness ascends into the higher worlds, it also encounters spiritual beings and facts that have no expression in the physical world. Thus, there are other experiences for the initiate besides those that cast their projection—their shadow image—down into the physical world. And likewise, there are spiritual beings and realities that do not cast their shadow into our soul life—that is, they find no expression in facts of conscience, in facts of thought, in feelings and sensations, and so on. If we wish to summarize what has been said, we can say: To the higher consciousness, the spiritual world presents itself as a far richer world than its outward expression in the physical world. — This is probably not a particularly surprising fact for most of you, but it must nonetheless be brought clearly before the soul. It must be clear that there are not only veiled spiritual phenomena and beings—just as fire veils the elemental spirits of fire that lie behind it—but that there are also hidden spiritual beings and realities. And we must distinguish between them if we are to continue our consideration and bring certain aspects that were already touched upon yesterday into even sharper focus in our souls.

[ 2 ] Yesterday we pointed out that there are, in fact, spiritual entities that correspond to what is called the conscience. Thus, there are spiritual entities for all inner realities. And at the end of yesterday’s lecture, I was able to note how the Greek myth had a clear insight into the fact that those spiritual beings who reveal themselves in this way are figuratively depicted in the Erinyes as, so to speak, the animators and instigators of our inner soul life, and that these belong to an older race of gods or spirits than those who appear to us behind the outer sensory phenomena. Therefore, those who spoke of the Erinyes said that they belong to an older race of gods than the folk gods of the Greeks, who had deemed Orestes’s revenge to be just. As it were, from a higher insight, the Erinyes were sent to correct what the folk gods—who were nothing more than mythical expressions for entities behind the sensory world—had deemed right. In this way, we have pointed to a very important fact concerning the entire evolution of humanity and the world, and this fact must occupy us more intimately today.

[ 3 ] Take another look back at everything that preceded the development of our Earth. As you know, before it became Earth, our planet was Old Saturn, the Old Sun, and the Old Moon. Those of you who have previously followed discussions on this subject will say to yourselves: In everything that happens in the course of our Earth’s evolution across the four kingdoms—the human, animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms—a veritable host of spiritual beings is at work, and these beings are at various stages of their own evolution. The beings who send down the Sun’s beneficial influences are at a certain stage of development, and behind Earth’s evolution stand other beings who separated the Moon at the right time. All these beings intervene in some way in the fabric of Earth’s evolution, in the fabric of the kingdoms that belong to Earth’s evolution, so that what lies behind the phenomena that surround us is a richly structured spiritual realm. Now you can easily imagine that there were equally richly structured spiritual kingdoms during the ancient Saturn, Solar, and Lunar evolutions. One must not attempt to understand all these realms by inventing names that are then supposed to apply permanently to one entity or another. The names that can be used are, for the most part, not names that denote individualities, but names that denote, as it were, ranks or offices. So if one uses a name for a being who was active during the Solar Age, one cannot use the same name when referring to that being in connection with its earthly activity, for there it has advanced further. You see that one must speak very precisely if one wishes to grasp reality in the spiritual realms.

[ 4 ] Thus, the evolution of our Earth was preceded not only by three incarnations of our Earth, but also by three spiritual worlds, three mighty world realms. And these three mighty world realms differ very significantly from one another when examined with supersensible consciousness. When one examines the ancient Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, what emerges is something that cannot really be compared to anything we are able to name on our Earth. We can only speak in relative terms here.

[ 5 ] You will recall that I have said that the ancient development of Saturn was essentially a development of heat and fire; that on the Sun, heat condensed into air; on the ancient Moon, air condensed into water; and on Earth, the “Earth” itself first came into being. But if you were to apply what you associate today with the concepts of fire or heat directly to the heat or fire development of ancient Saturn, that would not give you a completely accurate picture, for that Saturn fire differs fundamentally from our earthly fire. You cannot compare this Saturn fire at all to the fire you obtain when you light wood, or to the fire you use when melting metal and the like; rather, there is only one thing with which the ancient Saturn fire can be somewhat compared today, and that is the fire that flows through your own blood as heat. In this—one might say—living fire, in this warmth that is at the same time the life-giving force within you, you have something that can be compared to the substance of which the ancient Saturn consisted solely, whereas what is physical fire today is already a descendant, a later product of the ancient Saturn fire, and this form, as you see it out there in space with your physical eyes, actually first arose on Earth. Only the warmth of our blood physically reminds us of what existed on ancient Saturn during the period of physical development. So you see that there is very little within our present-day experience that can be compared to the qualities that existed in these earlier stages of development, so that we find three ancestral states very different from our present-day earthly condition: the ancient Saturn state, the ancient Sun state, and the ancient Moon state.

[ 6 ] Now, however, you must be clear that, fundamentally speaking, everything that existed during the ancient Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages is, in a certain sense, contained within our Earth’s evolution; it has merely changed. In a sense, what was first laid down as a seed in the ancient Saturn and subsequently developed through the Sun and Moon is contained within our Earth’s evolution, and we see all that has developed through these three successive stages—albeit transformed within our Earth’s evolution—but we can always discern from the transformed states what underlies them from the earlier stages of development. It is, as it were, the old Saturn, the old Sun, and the old Moon that are enshrined within our Earth.

[ 7 ] Now let us examine a little more closely how these things are woven into the development of our Earth. If you reflect on what has been said in the previous lectures, you can conclude that the Earth, together with the Sun and the Moon, was once a single body. At that time, this Earth contained within it all the spiritual beings and physical substances that existed during the ancient Saturn, Sun, and Moon eras, as well as all the spiritual beings that were active during those times. All of this dwelt together within the Earth at the beginning of the Earth’s history. Thus we can characterize this beginning of the Earth’s history as follows: the Earth begins by having absorbed within itself three preceding stages of development, along with all the developmental stages of the spiritual beings that preceded them. All of this lived within our Earth. But if you imagine that these beings have different stages of development, you must realize: Anyone observing this Earth must therefore be able to distinguish between these three different spiritual beings and substances; they must be able to say, regarding the beginning of Earth’s development: Here is something that could only have come into being because the Saturn evolution once preceded our Earth’s evolution; here is something that could only have come into being because the Sun evolution once preceded it; and here is something that could only have come into being because the Moon evolution once preceded our Earth’s evolution. — Thus, our Earth’s evolution was preceded by three states, which are reflected in this Earth body at the beginning of Earth’s evolution.

[ 8 ] The fact that I have just brought to your mind’s eye was always present to the people who, through an ancient instinctive consciousness, had a connection to the mysteries of the spiritual world. And when the number three is specifically mentioned as a characteristic number for higher worlds, those who focus on the concrete rather than the abstract, on the thing itself rather than concepts, always had before their souls the fact that our Earth contained within itself—as in its bosom—what came from the ancient Saturn, the ancient Sun, and the ancient Moon. This is the so-called higher, pre-earthly triad. The ancient initiates looked back to time immemorial, when everything earthly was still spiritual, and said: What later became solid on Earth was preceded by other elemental states. Before the Earth had yet joined the three preceding states as the fourth, these three states preceded it: the pre-earthly, to which all earthly existence owes its being. A trinity—which, in the terms familiar to us, we designate as Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—precedes our Earth. And what of our Earth’s development now? This trinity has evolved further, precisely into our Earth itself. Thus, when we speak of the so-called higher trinity, we specifically mean the three pre-Earth states; when we speak of the quaternity, we mean these three states as they have gradually transformed themselves so that they could still accommodate the Earth itself. That is why all people who were connected to the realities of the spiritual world through an instinctive awareness perceived the mystery of the Earth’s becoming in the relationship between the three and the four; they said to themselves: Our Earth is the fourth embodiment of our world’s evolution; as the fourth embodiment, it has incorporated the three earlier embodiments, which evolved up to their Earthly state, but three of them had to develop to ever higher stages even in the pre-Earth era. — Thus, looking up from what has become the Four toward the Three with sacred awe, people said: The Three—Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—lie at the foundation of the Four, which expresses our earthly evolution. It goes without saying that the terms Saturn, Sun, and Moon are my present-day expressions for others of the instinctive consciousness.

[ 9 ] If we now trace the development of our Earth ourselves, we may ask: How do the individual spiritual beings participate in its further progression? This progression consists in the Sun separating from the Earth, and then the Moon. Spiritual beings are involved in these processes; they guide them. Spiritual beings draw the Sun out of the Earth, and the same kind of beings draw the Moon out of the Earth. How, then, do the individual spiritual beings of the ancient Saturn, of the ancient Sun, and of the ancient Moon realm participate in these various processes? They are, after all, at different stages of development; they will therefore participate in different ways. First, we have a group of spiritual beings—these are the ones who underwent a certain development primarily during the evolution of the ancient Sun, a development that was as important to them as the Earth’s evolution is to human beings— that is, beings who have undergone such a development that the ancient Sun was, as it were, destined to provide them with a setting—beings who are, so to speak, attuned to the ancient Sun and belong to it. These are the beings who, even during the Earth’s evolution, brought the Sun forth from the Earth, because they had already reached such a stage during the ancient Sun that they were connected to it at that time just as humanity is now connected to the Earth. They have reached a stage where they need the Sun for their further progress. With the separation of the Sun, the Sun spirits also left the Earth to work upon our Earth from the outside. Now that the Sun spirits had departed, the Saturn spirits and the Moon spirits remained with the Earth. Of these two groups of spiritual beings, it was the Saturn spirits who had advanced so far in their development that they were able to guide and direct the Moon’s emergence from our Earth. These spirits were ready for this task because, in a certain sense, they had preceded the Sun spirits in their maturity; they had already undergone during the Saturn era what the Sun spirits would undergo during the Sun era. Therefore, they were able to drive the Moon out of the Earth and stimulate the inner development of the human being—to enliven from within a human being who would otherwise have become hardened and mummified. Thus one can say: The Sun spirits brought about the act of the Sun’s separation, and the Saturn spirits brought about the act of the Moon’s separation. — The Sun is the cosmic symbol of the deeds of the Sun Spirits; the Moon is the cosmic symbol of the deeds of the Saturn Spirits. What remains with the Earth itself? What were actually the ancient Moon Spirits—they remain with the Earth itself.

[ 10 ] Over the next few days, it will be helpful to focus on a very specific moment in the Earth’s evolution. I am referring to the moment when the Moon had just separated from the Earth. At that time, the Earth was left behind. The Sun had already departed earlier. The Earth is now in a very specific state; back then, it was not yet as it is today. If the Earth had already been as it is today at the time of the Moon’s separation, then the entire course of history would not have been necessary. So the Earth was not like that; compared to its present state—in which it is covered by the present mineral, plant, animal, and physical-human kingdoms—it was in an imperfect state. None of this had yet clearly emerged. The individual continents had not yet been separated from one another. Everything was, one might say, in a state of chaos. What came later had to develop first. You would search in vain if, using supersensible vision, you were to survey the course of development and look for, in the Earth’s state at that time, a plant cover and minerals like those of today; you would search in vain for animal and human forms such as those that exist today. How, then, did all this first come into being? It was brought about by the influence of the Sun and the Moon from outside. They had, after all, moved out so that they could act upon the Earth from the outside. Our Earth conjured forth that which could come into being through the influence of the Sun and the Moon: everything we see around us on Earth today. So we must picture an imperfect, chaotic Earth in our minds when we speak of the time when the Moon had moved away, and we must say: Little by little, the Earth became covered with the forms we perceive around us today—the vegetation, the various groups of animals, and the human races in the present-day physical sense. All of this sprouts and grows through the influence of the beings that act from the Sun and the Moon. The beings acting from the Sun are responsible, in particular, for the outer forms—the forms of minerals, plants, animals, and physical human beings; the beings acting from the Moon, in particular, stimulate the soul life in animals and human beings. Thus, these beings contribute to the development of our Earth from the outside. What I have now described to you is, in very few words, the picture that characterizes the development of the Earth from the so-called Lemurian period into the Atlantean period. It was not until the Atlantean period that the image of the Earth as we now perceive it in our surroundings began to take shape, very slowly and gradually. Thus, in the course of Earth’s evolution since the separation from the Moon, we must distinguish, so to speak, between a chaotic Earth and an ordered Earth—an Earth that has already experienced the influences of the spiritual beings in its surroundings.

[ 11 ] Everything I have said is a conclusion that need not be drawn from this or that historically transmitted teaching. Suppose that, due to some event, everything created by the initiates of—let us say—ancient, venerable India had been lost; suppose the insights of the Persian magi, the insights of the Chaldeans, the Egyptian initiates, and the insights of the Greek mysteries had all been lost; suppose everything up to the present day had been lost in terms of external documents—we would have no written record telling us what was ever taught about the spiritual foundations of our Earth’s evolution! What would not have been lost to us is the possibility of developing supersensory consciousness ourselves today. Thus, everything that has now been recounted can be discovered—without any historical document—through supersensory research. We therefore have before us something that, at this present stage of development, can be learned directly from the original source, just as mathematics, for example, can be learned directly from the original source.

[ 12 ] Now that we have, so to speak, laid out before us a small chapter of the comprehensive science of the spirit, let us try to pick up the thread somewhere to see how what we can establish today through supersensible research was lived in times past. Certainly, another method could be adopted, but for this lecture series we have adopted the approach of comparing what we can discover without historical documents with what has been handed down to us through this or that document. We do not even want to go particularly far back; but rather to a historical figure who lived in the relatively early days of Greek spiritual development—a figure about whom very little is known from an external, historical perspective, not even the exact dates of his life. Let us go back to the figure who, in a certain sense, preceded the other Greek sages: Pherecydes of Syros. He lived during the period of Greek spiritual development known as the time of the Seven Sages, which thus precedes everything else that is historically recorded about Greek philosophy. Very little is told in history about this Pherecydes of Syros. But it is interesting enough to take a closer look at what is said about him. Among other things, he is also mentioned as the teacher of Pythagoras. Many of the teachings you find in Heraclitus, Plato, and later sages can be traced back to him. He belonged to the earlier period of Greek development, which is said to have had seven sages, just as the ancient Indians are said to have had seven rishis. Pherecydes of Syros lived during the time of these seven sages of Greece. It is said of him that he taught that our entire development is based on three principles, and he calls these three principles Zeus, Chronos, and Chthon. What do these three terms mean? If one examines more closely what is meant by these three terms, it is as follows: First, you will readily know that Chronos is simply another name for the ancient Saturn; they are one and the same. Thus, in the principle of Chronos as described by Pherecydes of Syros, we find that sum of celestial-spiritual beings which we count among the realm of Saturn—everything we count among the realm of the ancient Saturn, everything that subsequently acted in Earth’s evolution as beings capable of separating the Moon—all of this we find in Chronos-Saturn. And furthermore, Zeus! Zeus is a word, a name, that is ambiguous when used in ancient times. It is used to refer to spiritual individualities at the most diverse stages of development. But those in ancient Greece who knew something of initiation saw in Zeus the leader of the sun spirits, as they perceived him. Zeus is that which lives in the effects exerted by the sun upon the earth. Thus we have designated the second realm—the realm of the sun spirits—as the “realm of Zeus” as described by Pherecydes of Syros. Chthon—what is that? It is nothing other than a term for the state of our Earth at the moment the Moon separated from it—namely, a kind of chaotic state in which neither plants nor animal and human species yet covered the Earth. And now you will find a curious statement by Pherekydes of Syros; he said: “These three principles—Zeus, Chronos, and Chthon—form the foundation of our Earth’s development. The Earth became what it is only through the interplay of these three principles, that sacred, primordial Trinity that has come down from pre-earthly states.” —So this ancient Greek sage is also familiar with it, and he designates it by the three names familiar to him. Now he recounts how things proceeded from there. In ancient times, however, it was not customary to describe such things with such dry, blunt terms as we do today; rather, people used vivid imagery for what they beheld and recognized in their minds. And so Pherekydes of Syros said: Chthon became Gaia, the Earth, what we call Earth today, because Zeus had bestowed upon her the gift of honor, thereby clothing her in that garment. — A beautiful way of describing the development I have just summarized for you in a few words. The Earth stood alone; outside were the Sun and the Moon, the spiritual realms of Zeus and Cronus. Then the Sun, which had gone out first, began to act upon the Earth. It was like a fertilization of the Earth in its chaotic state; thus, to speak in the words of the ancient Greek sages: it was like a fertilization of Chthon by Zeus. Sent down in the physical realm were the sun’s warmth and sunlight; sent down within the sun’s warmth and sunlight were the beneficial effects of the realm of Zeus, which fertilized everything. Thus the Earth was given the gift of honor. The Earth covered itself with a garment, and this garment is now nothing other than the tapestry of plant and animal forms and the forms of physical human beings with which the Earth is now enveloped. Chthon became Gaia through Zeus bestowing upon her the gift of honor, and through her thereby covering herself with this garment.

[ 13 ] Thus, in remarkable figurative expressions and beautiful language, we see once again what supersensible consciousness can discover today—from the time when the seven sages of Greece lived, when Pherecydes of Syros was active, of whom little more than the external details I have just recounted to you have been preserved. But anyone who illuminates these things associated with this sage with the light that supersensory research can provide us today will say to himself: One could not express such things so aptly—in a way confirmed by today’s supersensory research—unless one had known something of all these things oneself. - And if we now ask ourselves further: Where did the knowledge of Pherekydes of Syros come from? — we come to the conclusion that he was able to undergo a so-called Phoenician initiation. We thus see in him a person who was initiated in the temples of the ancient Phoenician land, and who brought what he was permitted to say from these Phoenician temples to Greece and taught it there. Thus, much of what existed there in harmony with the rest of Eastern wisdom flowed over from the East.

[ 14 ] I simply wanted to give you an example of this—and we could cite many such examples—of how what can be found today without any historical tradition can, if we know how to interpret it correctly, be traced back to the ancient sages. We have not gone very far back in human history with this. It is evident from many things that the teachings which can be found today as primordial can also be found in a corresponding form in ancient times, if one is only able to decipher the expressions. Nevertheless, you must not fail to recognize that it would be a completely mistaken principle to believe that our understanding of Eastern wisdom, as illuminated by what can also be gained in the Western world today, is exhausted by simply saying: “We find this or that in the East as a view regarding the development of the world,” and so we speak today. — But we find this in exactly the same way in, say, Pherecydes of Syros; we find it also in the Egyptian era, in the era of the Chaldean magi, and in ancient India. If one were to regard this as the only possibility, one might then say: So today we find a wisdom that existed in the most diverse forms everywhere where people have sought wisdom: one and the same wisdom everywhere! — Not the slightest objection can be raised against this assertion in its abstract form, for the fact simply stands as such; but it must be said that this is only part of the truth. Just as the development of a plant does not consist in the plant producing the same organs from its lowest root tip all the way to the fruit, but rather in it producing green leaves, colorful petals, stamens, the pistil, and so on, just as the plant thus changes the form of what it produces, driving it toward ever higher and higher levels, so it is with the progress of human life on Earth. While it is quite true that, so to speak, the same forms of wisdom appear again and again in the most diverse forms, there is nevertheless a development of these forms of wisdom; and it is simply not true that, for example, what exists today was already present in ancient Indian times. That would be just as incorrect as the claim that the plant is the same when the flower is fully formed as it is at—let us say, for the sake of argument—the root tip. The same force is at work there, so to speak; but one can only recognize this force in its reality by tracing its actual development, so that one perceives progress in the mysteries that underlie human evolution. What was taught on Earth in the early period following the great Atlantean catastrophe can still be taught today; what Pherecydes of Syros taught can still be taught today; but Earth’s evolution has also been enriched for humankind—it has taken on new dimensions.

[ 15 ] Yesterday we pointed out the significance of the Christian era for the development of humanity. With it came something to which nothing else can be compared, something that stands entirely alone in the history of the Earth. I have already heard someone say: “Yes, it would be an injustice within the development of humanity if, so many millennia before the appearance of Christ, full wisdom could not have been imparted to humankind.” How, then, did it come to pass that something could be withheld from the people of the pre-Christian era? We must assume—as some say—on the basis of universal justice that while the forms of truth may change, no new truths are added to the old; otherwise, one would have to claim that something higher had been prepared for the people who were preserved in their lives for the post-Christian era than for the pre-Christian people. —- If it were not actually stated from time to time, there would be no need to mention it here at all, for one can understand that this matter is discussed elsewhere, just not among those striving for spiritual science. Why not? Well, because the people who are incarnated in the post-Christian era are the same as those who lived before; because people pass through repeated incarnations and are called upon to learn afterward precisely what they were not yet able to learn before the appearance of Christ on earth. Anyone who believes that human beings incarnate over and over again merely to be served the same thing does not believe in reincarnation in earnest—not with their feelings or their entire soul life; for to believe in it earnestly means to understand its purpose and meaning—to realize that coming back again and again is not in vain, but that it happens so that one may always experience something new on Earth. But if this is the case, then new life must constantly flow into this Earth; one must see something new on Earth when one returns to it. It is an abstraction to say: The same forms of wisdom recur again and again in the various worldviews. — But the concrete, true reality is that these teachings evolve, that they take on ever higher and higher forms, until what is ripe to pass into a different state appears on Earth—just as the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states have passed into the Earth state. Not mere repetition, but real progress! That is what this is all about.

[ 16 ] And therein lies the difference between Eastern and Western ways of thinking. Given the West’s overall task and mission, the Western way of thinking can never be separated from a truly concrete historical understanding of our Earth’s development. And a historical understanding is only one that sees progress, not the repetition of the same. The concept of history is one that was first introduced into human development by the West. It was only there that people learned to truly view things historically, rather than merely seeing a repetition of the same. And if anyone among us appears who is not fully imbued with the concept of historical progress, and then devotes themselves to an Oriental way of thinking to a particular degree—the truth of which is not in the least doubted, and to which everything is attributed— yet it is still said that the historical perspective must be added—then it is easy for the concept of history to elude him, and a curious question may arise for him: What, after all, is the point of this eternal repetition of the same? That, for example, was the question posed by Schopenhauer, who lacked the concept of history in the proper sense and who, within our intellectual life, was one of those who absorbed much of the outward, exoteric aspects of Eastern life. The fact that some higher truth is established does not in any way undermine the lower truth; everything asserted from the ahistorical standpoint is affirmed; it is merely a matter of elevating a lower mode of thought into a higher realm—that is, in our case, illuminating the Eastern way of thinking with the light of the West. ^{1This exposition, which in itself seems somewhat rambling, is justified by the fact that it must counter the assertion often found in mystical worldviews that, fundamentally, the various successive religions and so on are merely transformations of a single primordial wisdom.}

[ 17 ] I would like to illustrate what I have just told you in the abstract with an example. You have already been able to sense from what has been said that, if we look for them, we can find the results of present-day supersensible research in a different form in ancient times. We can shed light on the past only if we draw that light from the present. In doing so, we turn once again to, let us say, a very specific spiritual personality, a spiritual individuality. Later we will have to discuss various details from this area; today, however, only one point is to be highlighted. If you go back to the time when the Vedas recorded what, in a certain sense, was an echo of the high, noble wisdom of the Rishis, you will find, among the various names for divine beings, the name “Indra.” If I am to answer the question from the perspective of present-day supersensory research—namely, “What kind of being was referred to as Indra in the Vedic era?”—I can best do so by describing how a person today can, through supersensory research, gain a conception of this being, which truly exists.

[ 18 ] We have, after all, emphasized that behind everything that surrounds us externally in the world—behind fire, air, water, and earth—there are spiritual beings. When we allow what is fire or air to act upon us—initially upon our senses—we have the outward expression of spiritual beings that stand behind the fire or the air. We can seek what lies behind what we physically perceive in ordinary life by raising ourselves, through supersensible perception, from the physical world to the soul world. There we find many beings corresponding to what is outwardly expressed in the air; that is to say, many spiritual beings work together in our spiritual environment to bring about what is outwardly expressed to us in the physical phenomena of the air. Let us ask ourselves: How does the spiritual realm behind the air present itself when we observe it in the soul world? The answer is: We encounter a number of spiritual beings who do not descend into the physical world, who express themselves in it through the air, and who appear to us in the soul world as individualities. And the most powerful of these beings is a very specific one. We still find this being today; it is the one who was named Indra in ancient India. It is also the one involved in the entire mechanism of our breathing process. The fact that we have become breathing beings at all, as we are, we owe to the activity of this being. We can constantly look up to this being and say: “To you, O Indra, I owe the ability to have such a breathing apparatus as we humans possess.” — But the activities of such beings, in turn, are not limited to just one thing; they are multifaceted. Human beings owe many other things to this very same being. Therefore, they can say: “To you, God Indra, to whom I owe the ability to breathe in this way, I also owe the strength that, for example, must flow through my muscles when I am to defeat my enemies in war.” Thus, he can pray to this Indra for the strength to defeat his enemies; for this is, so to speak, the function entrusted to this very same entity. It is also to this very same entity—for which we need no name at all, so long as we know that it exists—that we must attribute the fact that lightning flashes through the clouds, that thunder rolls, and that the beneficial effects accompanying thunderstorms come into being. One can, so to speak, send up prayers for these phenomena as well, if one even thinks of praying to the gods in this way.

[ 19 ] Thus we see that in the spiritual world there exists a certain being who was simply referred to as Indra in the ancient Vedic period. Indra is just as present for us as he was for the people of that time.

[ 20 ] And now comes the other point. Take this being of Indra—take him as the ancient Indian initiate truly saw him when he directed his spiritual eye toward the world of souls—take that, and now ask: Does today’s initiate see this Indra in the same way? — We must answer: He sees everything that was seen in this Indra back then, all of that, but he also sees something else in this Indra. — If you look at a man in his fortieth year named Fritz Müller, you can say to yourself: This is the same person I saw thirty years ago as a ten-year-old, who was already called that back then; but in a certain sense he has become something different. And you will give a poor description of this Fritz Müller in his fortieth year if you tell someone what he looked like when he was ten. What you say about Fritz Müller in this instance is entirely correct, but he has undergone a development over the course of those thirty years, and you must bear that in mind when you speak of his present condition. Do you now believe that, while human beings on Earth are constantly evolving in their individual lives and also from life to life, spiritual beings should remain exactly as they were back when, in ancient India, the contemplative consciousness was directed toward them? Are the gods merely those who have remained the same for thousands of years? They are not. We can rightly say that Indra has evolved since the time when the clairvoyants of ancient India looked up to him. What, then, has become of him? How does his evolution appear to us?

[ 21 ] When we direct our observing consciousness back to the figure of the ancient Indra, how does this figure appear to us? The following becomes apparent: There is a certain point in his development where something remarkable can be observed regarding this Indra. To visualize this clearly, let us repeat: we direct our observing consciousness in the world of the soul toward the ancient Indian god Indra and trace him back through the millennia. There we find a point in time when it appears as if rays of light were falling upon Indra from a completely different spiritual being; and through this light that falls upon Indra, he himself is illuminated; he is thereby raised to a higher stage of his development. It is just as if, at a certain stage in your life’s development, you were to learn something important that transforms you into a completely different person. This is precisely what happened one day to Indra: the spiritual light of another spiritual being fell upon him, and ever since that time, what was already present in the ancient Indra—but now enriched by the spiritual light of another being—has been radiating from him toward us. We can pinpoint the exact moment in the historical development of humanity when what I have just described took place. The god Indra exists in the soul world at a time when Christ is not yet perceptible to earthly development, yet the light emanating from Christ already falls upon Indra. The light—the spiritual light—that emanates from the Christ falls upon Indra only later. And someone who has the ability to do so can look at Indra and say: This Indra now reveals something different to me than he revealed before, for in the past the light of the Christ did not radiate back from him. — The one who is called to proclaim this to humanity says: There was the old Indra; we are interested in what he used to be; but now we are also interested in what he reflects back to us, what now radiates from him toward us. - Just as the moon reflects the sunlight, so from that point on Indra no longer casts his own light into the spiritual development of the Earth, but reflects back the light of Christ. This light, which does not yet fall upon the Earth itself, which is first reflected back by Indra—and which therefore does not allow us to perceive the Christ directly, but rather in the same way that we perceive sunlight when it shines from the moon—was what Moses proclaimed to his people; and he called the Christ-light, reflected back in this way like sunlight from the moon, Yahweh or Jehovah. And here you have what I have often emphasized in a different form in my lectures on the Gospel of John: Christ announces himself in advance, and Yahweh or Jehovah is the name for the Christ-light that is initially reflected back by an ancient deity—the Christ who was prophetically foretold.

[ 22 ] It is as if, in the course of Earth’s evolution, the ancient Indra had been embraced by the Christ-light, and now this Christ-light were radiating back down to Earth from him. By being touched by this Christ-light, the god Indra himself has undergone a process of evolution. Of course, he did not become Jehovah. You must not say: Jehovah is Indra. But you will find it understandable that just as Indra revealed himself in lightning and thunder, so too did Yahweh or Jehovah reveal himself therein, because the light can only be reflected back in accordance with the nature of the reflecting being. That is why Yahweh revealed himself in lightning and thunder. Here you have an example of how, so to speak, spiritual evolution unfolds in its world just as human evolution does in ours, and how the same picture does not present itself when we observe spiritual beings after millennia have passed. Something is taking place in the spiritual world; there is history within it; and what constitutes Earth’s history is the outward expression of the history in the spiritual world. Truly, everything that happens here on Earth has its causes in events of the spiritual world; and we must learn to understand and grasp in detail what kinds of events lie behind our earthly events as their foundations.

[ 23 ] With this example, I have shown you what it means to shed light on those ancient worlds from today’s perspective. To do this, we must take the concept of history very seriously and ask ourselves: When we look at the same entity that existed millennia ago, how does it appear to us today—how has it changed—and what has brought about this change? I wanted to use a specific example to explain the history of spiritual life to you. If you hold fast to the idea that there are forms of wisdom we find today and that we rediscover when we look back—only under different names, in different forms, and expressed differently—and at the same time hold fast to the idea that historical development, progress in spiritual life—which underlies physical life—then you also have the two correct principles that must underlie all spiritual science that seeks to influence humanity’s future and to advance.

[ 24 ] Tomorrow we will speak of the revelation of the one divine life in its various forms, of the realization of the divine life’s progression toward ever higher and higher forms, and of the ripening of the true fruits of existence in this world.