The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] It will have become clear from yesterday’s lecture that, in order to approach the facts underlying this analysis without prejudice, it is indeed necessary to set aside, to a certain extent, all those feelings and emotions that would otherwise easily influence a person from precisely the perspective that we must now characterize objectively. As long as one is still in any way inclined to take an objective characterization of this or that race, this or that folk culture, or the like, personally, an unbiased understanding of the facts presented in this very lecture series will be difficult to achieve. This is also connected to the fact that these matters can be discussed on no other ground than that of Spiritual Science. For whatever one may hear about the characteristics of this or that ethnic group, and however much one might be drawn to take it personally—precisely because one stands, with one’s own sensations, feelings, and so on, within a particular race or ethnic group—one possesses, as a student of Spiritual Science, a sufficient counterweight to place on the other side of the scale. This is the truly understood doctrine of karma and reincarnation. It offers us a glimpse of the fact that, with the innermost core of our being, we are incarnated in successive ages among the most diverse races and peoples. Thus, when we look to this core of our being, we can be certain that through it we will not only share in the sunny or perhaps even the shadowy sides of all races and peoples, but we can also be certain that, in our innermost being, we will absorb, contribution by contribution, the blessings of all races and peoples as we incarnate now here, now there.

[ 2 ] Our consciousness and our horizons are broadened and made more comprehensive by these ideas of karma and reincarnation. That is why it is only through them that we learn to bear what must appear before our spiritual eye in the present regarding the mysteries of racial and national relationships. Thus, precisely through what is discussed in this reflection—if it is correctly understood—a sense of dissatisfaction with being incarnated in this or that nation or race cannot take root within us. Nevertheless, such an objective view of human national and racial characteristics can still introduce discord and disharmony into humanity if it is not received with the prerequisites indicated. The spiritual seeker will learn through the teachings of karma and reincarnation how every people—no matter how small—must make its contribution to the overall development of humanity. This is precisely what will be significant: in the second part of these lectures, it will be shown how the individual influences of the national missions flow into humanity as a whole, and how even individual fragments of peoples, scattered here and there among the great masses, have their significance in the overall harmony of human evolution. But this will only gradually come into view before our spiritual eye.

[ 3 ] In order to gain a full understanding of the characteristics of individual Folk-souls, we will have to focus on examples that, in a certain respect, are clearer to us than the national characteristics of the present—within which we ourselves live with our civilization— and, on the other hand, we may have to examine national characters that are somewhat more distant from us in time, so that we may gain an understanding of how national characters and national missions can be understood at all. Thus, we have so far characterized only in general terms what is racial and what is national.

[ 4 ] The fact that we have discovered in the course of our recent lectures that, within a race, a “normal” and an “abnormal” spirit of form must work together—that is to say, that within a people, an archangelic spirit in the process of normal development and one in the process of abnormal development must be at work— has, so to speak, made it clear to us how the beings we have come to know as the spiritual hierarchies intervene in evolution.

[ 5 ] Now let us ask ourselves: How do spiritual beings of a higher order influence the concrete world? It will be helpful today if we lay a foundation by first gaining an understanding of the hierarchies to which, as we know, human beings belong as the lowest link. If you recall what we have already heard, you will know that we understand these hierarchies in such a way that we say: Humanity stands on the lowest level. — Below it lie the three kingdoms of nature: the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. — Then come the angels, then the archangels, then the primordial forces or Archai. This is what we can describe as the first of the hierarchies, ascending from the human being. The second of the hierarchies is as follows:

1. Spirits of Form — Powers
2. Spirits of Motion — Authorities
3. Spirits of Wisdom — Dominions

[ 6 ] Then there is the highest of the three hierarchies:

1. Spirits of the Will — Thrones
2. Cherubim
3. Seraphim

[ 7 ] Now let us ask ourselves: Since all spiritual beings reveal themselves in some way—so that they appear somewhere within the realm of maya, or illusion, that is, within the realm of the sensory world—where can we find them at the lowest level of revelation, at the level of delusion? In their ordinary contemplation of nature and the spirit, human beings are familiar only with the realm of maya, or illusion—the outermost expression of these spiritual beings. I will show you with an example how human beings actually know only the outermost manifestation, the outermost revelation of these beings.

[ 8 ] For example, a person walks across Nordic rocky terrain. At first, they will say: “There is matter spread out here,” and they will describe this dense rock over which they walk as they initially see it, calling it “hard rock” in their everyday language. The one who penetrates to the essence of things sees something entirely different in this rock matter. What is it, actually, that we tread upon and that offers us resistance? What people believe to be there is not there at all; it is an illusion. The outermost surface of our Earth is merely an illusion. The truth is this: forces act upward from below, which in turn are nothing other than forces radiating from certain beings, so that we can say: In such a piece of ground, we see before us that which initially presents itself as a force acting outward from the earth in all directions. These forces are truly there and radiate out into space in all directions. However, a human being could not walk around on Earth if only these forces were present. These forces alone would hurl a person out into space at breakneck speed. The fact that a person can stand on solid ground is due to the fact that other forces radiate in from outer space on all sides. The sphere of the incoming forces is constantly encountering that of the outgoing forces, and where they meet, they form, so to speak, a boundary—and that is the Earth’s surface. Thus, what we perceive as the surface is merely an illusion resulting from incoming and outgoing forces that act in such a way as to counteract one another precisely at that surface. What flows out from there is essentially the same as what we must call the effects of the Thrones, the effects of the Spirits of Will. These Spirits radiate their forces from the Earth in all directions, and what comes in from outer space is essentially what can be called the inward-radiating, inward-acting forces of certain Spirits of Movement. These two kinds of forces thus meet here, and this interaction between the Thrones and the Spirits of Movement—in which the Thrones are held back in their action by the Spirits of Movement—results in the variously configured surface, so that what you see on the outside as the Earth’s surface is the most untrue thing, the ultimate illusion. What is really there is a balance of forces and, as it were, a covenant between the spirits of will and the spirits of motion, concluded in such a way that it configures the Earth in the most diverse ways.

[ 9 ] However, that still would not be enough for our Earth, as it is right now, to form as such a planet. The interaction between the spirits of will and the spirits of motion would not yet be sufficient for this. There would have to be something else entirely. For if only the spirits of will were to act from within the Earth and had only the spirits of motion as their counterpart, then the Earth would be in a state of constant flux, in a ceaseless inner current. The planet would not yet be able to come to rest at any point. It would not be as fluid as today’s ocean, nor would it be an element that casts and forms waves as easily as water, but it would cast and form waves within a denser mass.

[ 10 ] If you would like to get a mental image of how the spirits of the will and the spirits of movement originally interacted, I would like to give you an example and ask you to follow along with me on the map. First, I would like to point out the Alps, which today form a solid mountain range, so that, like a solid bed of rock, the Alpine massif separates the Italian Peninsula in the south from the other European regions. How did this Alpine range actually come into being? There was a time—long ago in the distant past—when the Alpine massif did not yet exist at all, but to the north and west there were already older elevations that had solidified by then. It was viscous waves that were then thrown up from the south, so that we can form a mental image of the process as follows:

[ 11 ] Here at point A, we would have the Bohemian Plateau. Now imagine a mental image of a mighty wave that surged up from the south, splitting and spreading to the right toward the Bohemian Plateau and to the left toward the Central French Plateau. This mighty wave thus formed the Alpine massif in ancient times. Even a layperson can grasp this concept. Anyone who has ever stood on a mountain peak in the Alps and surveyed the distinctive configuration of the Alpine range can see—even without knowing it—what Spiritual Science has long established and what today’s geologists themselves observe: the peculiar wave-like formation that took place at a time when the Earth’s primordial mass was still in a viscous state. Thus, through the interaction of the spirits of will and the spirits of movement, the Earth would still be taking shape today if another force had not come into play—a force that is extraordinarily enduring and that manifests itself on the Earth’s surface by incorporating into the forces of will, which interact with the spirits of movement, what we call the spirits of form. You can thus create a mental image of these Spirits of Form, dancing, as it were, upon the waves, bringing the moving masses to rest and molding them into forms. We are witnessing the interplay of three kinds of forces. These three forces can be traced back to three kinds of beings. On the one hand, you see the spirits of form at work, acting both upward and downward, both into the sphere of the spirits of will and into the sphere of the spirits of movement. Above them are the spirits of movement; below them, the spirits of will. — That which on our Earth appears outwardly primarily as a liquid element—though not our present-day water, but the ancient liquid element that has been brought to rest by the spirits of form—must be understood as the outermost manifestation of the spirits of will, or the Thrones. But another element always intermingles with this activity; the spirits of Will, or Thrones, are assisted, so to speak, by the Cherubim and Seraphim. The Cherubim provide assistance in the element of air, in everything that, as an airy form, permeates the apparent matter of the Earth. Air is, as it were, an illusion, and behind it stand the powerful beings we call cherubim. The seraphim work within what we know as heat, behind everything that exists as heat.

[ 12 ] We are thus looking at what is brought about on our planet by radiations emanating from within, from the center. We can therefore say: Our planet is composed in such a way that the spirits of will—or Thrones, the Cherubim, and the Seraphim—act from its center. We must understand our planet in this way: Where its boundary of air and heat lies—the sea of air belongs to our planet just as much as water or solid earth—a surface is formed, as it were. On this surface, the spirits of form literally dance upon the waves and bring them to rest, giving them form. For this reason, they were given this name, because they bring the viscous element to rest. Behind them stand the Spirits of Movement. Into their element is again mingled that which we call the Spirits of Wisdom. So that when we look toward the center of our planet, we can say: There are sublime beings—Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. — When we look outward, we first gaze through the sphere of the Spirits of Form—who permeate the air and warmth with their element—toward the Spirits of Movement and the Spirits of Wisdom. Everything we encounter in terms of natural forces and phenomena when we direct our gaze outward into the surroundings of our Earth, when we look up into the heights of the heavens, is essentially attributable to the second hierarchy. Everything we see when we look down into the depths of the Earth, we attribute to the beings we have designated as the third hierarchy. The unique interplay between the second and third hierarchies gives rise to the configuration of our surroundings.

[ 13 ] In which element of nature—we have cited the three natural elements of water, air, and fire as being connected to the spirits of the will, the Cherubim and Seraphim—do the spirits of form now manifest themselves? These are the next beings that dance upon the surface where we weave, live, and exist. They enter from outer space, but now unfold their power in what flows up from the earth. As far as we can observe, they are concentrated in what we call the radiant rays of the sun. Light, then, is the element in which the spirits of form initially weave and live. But as the effects of light, with all that they contain, unfold at the boundary where the spirits of movement and the spirits of will interact, solid forms are produced.

[ 14 ] Human beings initially have no organs with which to look up into what lies beyond those forces of light—which we also call the spirits of form—nor do they have organs with which to look into what is interwoven into the light. Everything on our Earth that brings about decomposition and synthesis, everything that acts upon it as chemical forces, is here still interwoven into the light, and this is essentially the realm in which the spirits of motion are active. When a human being learns to perceive something of what they otherwise see only as maya in the effects of chemical combinations and decompositions, then they hear these spirits of movement; then they perceive the music of the spheres of which the Pythagorean and other mystery schools speak. This is also what Goethe describes when he speaks of the sun not as the giver of light, but says: “The sun resounds in the brotherly spheres with a song of rivalry, as in times of old, and completes its prescribed journey with a thunderous roar.”

[ 15 ] This music of the spheres is still present even now; it is just that ordinary consciousness cannot hear it. It is real—this music of the spheres—which reaches all people as an astral influence from without. People simply do not hear it. If they were to experience the same kind of change with regard to this music of the spheres as they do with light—which they do not see at certain times, such as when darkness falls—then they would also hear it at certain times. But it resounds day and night, and therefore they can hear it only when they undergo a certain occult training, a certain occult development. While light flows toward us as light during the day and continues to weave as absorbed light during the night, the music of the spheres resounds day and night. For human beings, it is thus like the miller who hears the mill only when it stands still.

[ 16 ] There are also the spirits of wisdom, who send their influences in from outside and work into the weaving light and the music of the spheres that permeates space. This is the life of the world ether radiating onto the Earth. Life flows from outer space onto the Earth and is received by the beings. This comes from the Spirits of Wisdom.

[ 17 ] Thus we gaze into the far reaches of the universe and first look up to the Sun, in which these forces are concentrated for us, and see how flowing life, weaving sound, and shaping light—the Trinity of the Second Hierarchy—penetrate from space. From below, the highest of the hierarchies flows toward us: the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. Woven into all this activity across the Earth—acting more within the innermost being of living beings—is the first hierarchy. This includes, first of all, the Archai, who act as spirits of the ages. These spirits of the ages weave within what has been prepared for them by the higher hierarchies and bring about what we call our human history—the cultural evolution on Earth. Then, in the surrounding circle, we find the archangels, the spirits of the tribes, and finally the mediators between the individual human being and the archangels: the angels.

[ 18 ] We can therefore say: The forces of nature that we have on the Earth—earth, water, air, and fire—are permeated by the beings of the third hierarchy, and these beings work in opposition to the activity of the spirits of form that come from outside. From the outside, the beings of the second hierarchy stream in, and surrounding the Earth are the beings of the first hierarchy, which is, so to speak, provisionally the one with the weakest forces. Just imagine for a moment what powerful forces the exalted beings possess—those we call the Spirits of Will—who are actually chiseling the ground upon which we walk. Then we have those forces that stream in from the outside. Let us take those closest to us, the Spirits of Form, who plastically shape the masses. Then we have what works intimately within the human soul—what we call the angels, archangels, and archai. — In the third hierarchy, then, we have those forces of nature that we know as the strongest, as the subterranean forces of nature, as the forces of our earthly foundations. In the second, we have those forces that live and weave around us in the etheric element, and in the first hierarchy, we have that which intimately permeates and interweaves our very being.

[ 19 ] When we consider these three hierarchies in their interaction and observe how they work on our planet Earth, how they shape it out of the entire womb of the universe, we gain an understanding of what was necessary to bring this Earth into being. The Earth had to pass through various incarnations before it could become the Earth: through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states. If you follow the descriptions in my book From the Akashic Records and in my Esoteric Science, you will see that even during the Earth’s earlier incarnations these various spiritual beings worked together, only that this interaction took place in a manner different from the present one. Each time a new incarnation occurred—that is, the Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth states—there was a different kind of interaction among these hierarchical beings, because each of these states through which our Earth has passed represents a specific task that these hierarchical beings set for themselves. We can certainly say that each of the states our Earth has gone through—and the states it will yet go through—represents and has represented a specific mission in cosmic evolution.

[ 20 ] It is now extremely difficult—since all concepts change from one planetary state to another—to define what the mission of the ancient Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs was. This is not easy because one must first characterize the mission of our Earth in very abstract terms. The easiest way to get a mental image of this is to consider the nature of the various forces that manifest themselves in the cosmos. Now, when you look at the inner human being—at the life of the soul—you find willing, feeling, and thinking; and conversely, when you look at the human sheaths—at the outer aspects of human nature—you find the physical body, etheric body, and astral body; so that when you look at modern human beings and initially set aside their “I,” you can perceive them as a fabric woven from the physical, etheric, and astral bodies, into which—as into an outer shell—willing, feeling, and thinking are woven.

[ 21 ] Now, these forces within the human being—both in the outer and inner human being—are always connected to some earlier mission that was linked to previous incarnations on Earth. Take, for example, the Saturn mission. If you wish to form a rough mental image of it, you can think of it as related to what the human physical body is on the one hand and the human will on the other. This means that if there had been no Saturn incarnation of our Earth, the human will on the one hand and the human physical body on the other would not have been able to take on their present form. Humanity owes what it possesses in terms of will and physical body to the ancient Saturn. We learn from the Akashic Records that humanity owes its physical body to Saturn. However, every preceding state also continues to exert an influence on the forms that follow it. What therefore manifests itself today as will can be traced back to the aftereffects of the Saturn element. This leads to the conclusion that the human being’s essence manifests itself as will from within. You can gain an understanding of the mission of the Solar State by considering what is called the human etheric body and linking it to the faculty of feeling. You have already been told that the etheric body dates back to the ancient Sun. However, the aftereffect works in such a way that human beings were able to develop the inner powers of feeling at a later stage. And when we finally turn our attention to the Lunar stage, we see that the human astral body and human thinking are bound to it. Thus we can say: In order for these forces of the inner and outer human being—physical body, etheric body, and astral body; willing, feeling, and thinking—to have developed in such a way that human beings today possess them as their outer and inner life, three successive cosmic missions were necessary. And the beings we have referred to as the beings of the hierarchies had to work together in a corresponding alternating activity each time so that the task of the three successive incarnations of our Earth could be fulfilled and humanity could be endowed with what is manifested in its present constitution.

[ 22 ] Thus, the mission of the ancient Saturn state had to be fulfilled; otherwise, human beings would not have been able to receive the infusion of the physical body and the power of will. The mission of the Sun had to be fulfilled; otherwise, human beings could not have received the etheric body and the faculty of feeling; and finally, the mission of the Moon had to be fulfilled; otherwise, they could not have received the astral body and what we call the power of thought. Thus, the three preceding incarnations of our Earth are dedicated in particular to what we might call one of the predominant elements of our own personal being, our “I.” For it is a fact that the outer, physical body—which has flowed forth from the essence of the ancient Saturn, from the spirits of the will—represents nothing other than the will as seen from the outside. In us, the will acts as an inner life emanating from within. — These words are chosen with great precision; they are not fanciful but correspond exactly to the nature of the matter. You can learn a great deal from them. — The Earth underwent the Solar period in order to establish, on the one hand, the etheric body through the influence of the spirits of wisdom, and, on the other hand, through the continuing influence of the element of wisdom, that which reflects inner wisdom: feeling. What the Lunar mission entailed is connected in a similar way to the astral body and to thinking.

[ 23 ] Now the question arises: What special mission did the spirits of form—who are primarily active on Earth and shape the Earth—choose for themselves? We can say, to begin with, that the spirits who worked primarily on Saturn—the spirits of will, or Thrones—had the mission of weaving in the element that would later manifest itself in the will during Earth’s evolution. That is the great mission of Saturn: to instill the will, to implant the forces of will. When we contemplate such things, we develop deep reverence and respect for the ruling cosmic powers. We develop a true appreciation for these powers when we see that a special planetary mission was necessary to create the artful fabric of outer will—which lives in the physical body—and inner will. The entire world of the hierarchies had to bring a planet into being and allow it to pass away again in order to bring about the relationship that is woven into us as the outer and inner elements of will. Likewise, the ancient Sun had to come into being in order to give rise to the etheric body and the emotional element—the inner element of wisdom. The lunar mission was necessary for what is then reflected in our thinking element, in our astral nature, as the inner element of thought within the human being.

[ 24 ] What, then, is the mission of the spirits of form—what, in other words, is their true mission on Earth? If you associate the Saturn mission with the imprinting of the will, the Sun mission primarily with the imprinting of the emotional element, and the Moon mission primarily with the imprinting of the mental element—that is, what is present in the human astral body— then the mission of the Earth must be linked to bringing about a complete balance of these three elements—establishing the equilibrium of these three elements, each of which held sway during one of the earlier states of our planet—so that, in a state of equilibrium, these three elements—each of which held hegemony in one of the Earth’s earlier incarnations—work together. That is the mission of our Earth. To bring the struggle between these elements to a halt by bringing them into the correct state of equilibrium—that is the Earth’s mission. Human beings are woven into this Earthly mission in order to first establish this equilibrium within their own inner being through thinking, feeling, and willing. In this regard, at the time of the Earth’s formation, human beings were indeed a chaotic web of thinking, feeling, and willing. Just as inner balance is not yet complete in present-day human beings—but is often in disharmony and disorder—this is something anyone with even a little self-knowledge can sense within themselves. Human beings are first and foremost called upon to establish the balance between thinking, feeling, and willing within themselves, through which they can radiate from within and transmit to the Earth what this balance of thinking, feeling, and willing signifies.

[ 25 ] In occult symbolism, this mission of the Earth has always been expressed in a very special way through a particular figure. If you examine all geometric figures, you will find none that corresponds as precisely to the interplay of forces in the sense of balance as the equilateral triangle. If you simply draw an equilateral triangle, you will find that the three sides are equal to one another, the three angles are equal to one another, each vertex is equidistant from the others, and all are equidistant from the center. The center of the equilateral triangle is an absolute symbol of the principle of balance, so that when the occultist looks at the triangle, he can see in it a symbol of the absolutely balanced interplay of whatever held hegemony in each of the three previous incarnations of our Earth. The actions of the “I” within the human being signify nothing other than the creation of an active, dynamic center within human nature, through which this state of equilibrium can be prepared from within. Thus, the human being is indeed called to great things on our Earth—namely, to bring about, from within and through his entire being, the equilibrium of that which previously prevailed in various ways and at different times.

[ 26 ] At first glance, this is a rather abstract definition of our mission on Earth, but this is indeed what it consists of. The mystery of this mission lies in the fact that, through this interplay—through this balance of the three forces—the inner realm actually brings forth something new and productive. This truly gives rise to a fourth element in addition to the three preceding ones, and this fourth element is the element of love. Love can develop within the workings of the world only when an absolute balance is established among the three forces that have alternately held hegemony in earlier times. — We will have more to say about this in the coming days. For now, please accept this as an abstract characterization.

[ 27 ] Thus, our planet is the planet of love, and that is why this balance—which manifests in the interplay of these three forces—is, so to speak, an act of love in its outcome; and this act of love is to be woven into the entire course of evolution through all subsequent incarnations on Earth, precisely through the mission of earthly activity. Through this, the Trinity becomes a Quaternity, and this Quaternity begins with its fourth element at the lowest level—it begins, so to speak, with the lowest form of love, which is purified and refined to such an extent that, by the end of Earth’s entire evolution, love will emerge as a fully equal element. Fulfilling the mission of balance for our Earth planet therefore essentially means: making the Trinity a Quaternity. That is why the mystery of Earthly existence is usually expressed in occult terms with the words “making the Trinity a Quaternity.” The fourth element is, of course, still very imperfect today. However, once the Earth has fulfilled its mission, it will shine just as brightly as the sacred triangle, which, with its state of balance, stands before us as the highest symbol we have for our earthly ideal—insofar as we remember the Earth’s past.

[ 28 ] This interplay of the elements of thinking, feeling, and willing within the human being is such that this very inner being becomes the substance of love. This is what can be called the truly productive, the inwardly productive force in earthly existence. Therefore, because the spirits of form have precisely this mission—to bring the three earlier states into balance—they must be designated in their entirety as the spirits of love.

[ 29 ] When we consider earthly existence in this way, we have first characterized willing, feeling, and thinking, as well as the workings of love, as existing outside our Earth; and we have been able to identify the special task of the Spirits of Form as the instillation and imprinting of love, which is the result of balance. This, then, constitutes the Earth’s overall mission. In order to bring about this force of love that permeates the Earth, the interaction and collaboration of all that we have described as the work of the lowest hierarchies is necessary. As we began to describe in our previous discussion, this must, so to speak, weave the web of love, and this fabric of love must be woven in such a way that the main threads are woven in—because this corresponds to their fundamental mission—by the normal Spirits of Form. Then the abnormal spirits of form—which are actually spirits of movement—weave into it that which gives rise to the races. Then the normal and abnormal spirits of time weave in historical development, and then the archangels, through normal and abnormal development, weave in the individual developments of peoples and languages, and finally, the beings who place humanity in its proper place on Earth—the angels—work into it. Thus is this mighty web of love woven. But what is woven as the web of love—as the true mission of the Earth—is visible on our Earth only as a reflection, as maya.

[ 30 ] The next realm above the physical world where this web can be seen is the astral world. But as one ascends from the astral world into the worlds of the lower and higher Devachan, one sees ever more clearly the work of the Hierarchies on the truths that underlie our outer maya. Then one sees how this fabric is woven. When one ascends to the astral world, however, one does not yet perceive what weaves primarily from within—namely, the spirits of will, the cherubim and seraphim. If a person wishes to find these spirits at work, they must ascend to even higher worlds to observe them. But there is one thing we already find in the astral world: what we call the abnormal spirits of form, who—had they attained normal development—would be weaving from the outside. We have seen that the spirits of the second hierarchy are meant to weave from the outside; here, however, we see that they weave from the inside. We can therefore say: Within this web, in which the spirits of movement, the spirits of form, and the spirits of wisdom weave from the outside, and the spirits of will—the seraphim and cherubim—weave from the inside, there are also beings weaving from the inside who should actually be weaving from the outside. But they weave beneath the surface, much as the silkworm weaves its cocoon. What is initially seen in the astral world is inner. These peculiar spirits of movement—which are displaced, fallen spirits—are the next to become visible among these spiritual beings weaving and surging within the Earth’s spiritual atmosphere. These spiritual beings, who are the first to become visible on the astral plane—even before what normally appears, namely the angelic beings or Angeloi—are, for clairvoyant perception, in a certain sense actually the seductive spirits, even though they are necessary for the creation of the races in the deepest sense. These spirits, each of whom in turn has many under them—because each generates many spiritually subordinate beings—are enveloped in the spiritual world by a host of spiritual beings who always stand beneath the respective hierarchies. Even the higher spirits have such subordinate entities; the spirits of will have the undines; the cherubim have the sylphs; the seraphim have the salamanders. But even these abnormal spirits of form—which are actually spirits of movement and appear on the astral plane as a kind of ugly spiritual beings—have their own subordinate spirits. They are the spirits that weave and live within what is connected to the emergence of the human races—that is, what in human beings is connected to, so to speak, the element we have characterized as earth-bound, as that which is related to procreation and the like. These are beings; this is, in fact, a realm that belongs to the most varied and dangerous in the astral world, and it is, unfortunately—and this is best said in context here—the realm that can most easily be found by those who come to see in an incorrect manner. The host of spirits concerned with the reproduction of the race—and who serve as its instruments—is the easiest to encounter. Many who have ventured into the occult realm prematurely and in an improper manner have paid dearly for it, having encountered this host of spiritual beings without the harmonizing influence of other spiritual beings.

[ 31 ] In this way, we have been able to shed light on what spins and weaves within the Real to create the fabric from which the actual spiritual world of the human being then unfolds. We will continue tomorrow to discuss how this foundation—which we have now examined to some extent—manifests itself in the origins of races, peoples, and so on.