The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] This is, in essence, a question that runs through all worldview issues, whether in Spiritual Science or elsewhere: What path must humanity actually follow in its development within the universe?

[ 2 ] Even someone who has not yet trained their thinking through Spiritual Science—even if they are deeply inspired by a sense of worldview—may sometimes ask about the ultimate goals of human evolution; they would most like to know what will become of humanity once it has reached the end of its evolution. We have often spoken of the fact that such a question can arise only from untrained thinking, and that for a mind trained by Spiritual Science, what matters is to understand the path correctly at any given point in evolution; for when one knows which path human evolution has taken, one simply moves a step further forward. Today, let us once again consider the question mentioned above from a certain perspective—the question of the direction in which human evolution is heading.

[ 3 ] As you know, human evolution only reached the Earth stage after passing through earlier stages, and this Earth stage was preceded by the Moon stage. Now it must be said that, in a certain sense, the earlier stage is preserved and continues to have an effect in a later stage. We can say that we are Earth humans, but that in a certain sense we carry the Lunar human within us. We have perfected ourselves from the Moon, but the Lunar human is still within us; he is inside us; he is, so to speak, involved within us. So we can say: If we were to describe this schematically as the Earth human, then the Moon human is contained within this Earth human. — One can therefore say: We carry the Earth human within us, but the Earth human encompasses the Moon human.

[ 4 ] Now you will easily move on to the next point: that the Lunar Man, in turn, encompasses the Solar Man, and the Solar Man encompasses the Saturnian Man, so that we still carry within us the Solar Man and the Saturnian Man. You must not, however, create a mental image of what this schematic diagram conveys of reality. It goes without saying that in reality the Lunar Man does not sit enclosed within the Earth Man as if in a shell; rather, when we create a mental image of the reality of the Earth Man and the Lunar Man, it is, for example, like this: What belongs to the Earth in a specific sense—we should have in our mental image that it is located mainly in the torso, extending from the lower and upper limbs up into the neck region. And if we wish to form a mental image of the Lunar Man, we must picture him as the head situated above this; whereas we must form a mental image of the Solar Man as certain organs in the head that are already well on their way to disintegration, and the Saturnian Man as organs in the head that are already barely perceptible.

[ 5 ] If we now consider the evolution of our Earth, we can say: The first, second, third, and fourth periods—the latter being the Atlantean period—have passed. We are now living in the fifth, the post-Atlantean period.

[ 6 ] The first three Earth periods were, in a certain sense, mere repetitions of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon eras. Then there is a middle period, a time of balance, which in its first half is also a repetition, while in its second half serves as preparation for what is to come. And only now, in the post-Atlantean era, are we living in something entirely new compared to the Saturn, Sun, and Moon developments. That is why it is only since about the middle of the Atlantean era—though prepared for since the Lemurian era—that what we call the “Earth human” has been fully developed within the human being; before that, we were still dealing with recurring forms of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon humans.

[ 7 ] It is only in the post-Atlantean epoch that humanity begins its development alongside the Earth-human; it is only then, so to speak, that the true active development of the Earth-human begins. And that is why the first three cultural periods of post-Atlantean development—the Indian, Persian, and Egyptian-Chaldean periods—still contain an element of repetition, even though they already represent far-reaching new formations in human beings. It was not until the Greek-Latin, the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period, that a decisive phase began for humanity, and in our fifth post-Atlantean cultural period, we are indeed living in a particularly important and significant time.

[ 8 ] As you know, in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch, human beings began to gradually replace the old clairvoyance—inherited from the Moon—with the truly external, concrete observation of things, which then gradually developed into the scientific study of things, leading to a materialistic worldview, and that we wish to set the worldview of Spiritual Science in contrast to this materialistic worldview. Take everything we are capable of conceiving and knowing about the world; consider all the perceptions, concepts, and ideas that human beings can have today. Haven’t we often discussed how this actually works? We have all of this because our spiritual-soul life is reflected in the physical-bodily realm. In waking earthly life today, human beings experience the world because their spiritual-soul life evokes certain processes in the physical-bodily realm, and these processes become a mirroring apparatus: and this mirroring apparatus then forms the content of our consciousness. Thus, in that we have a certain content of our earthly consciousness from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep—mental images, sensations, impulses of the will; that is what is meant—the physical human being on Earth is, in the first instance, truly the apparatus for all of this, for the content that the human being has accumulated during earthly life.

[ 9 ] So during our waking life on Earth, we experience things through our physical, earthly human being; but we do, after all, carry the Lunar Human within us. The Lunar Human within us is not suited to serve directly as an instrument for our perception. The lunar human was suited to forming the ancient, dreamlike mental images on the Moon; today, it is not suited to forming our clear, waking earthly perceptions. But this lunar human is still within us, and it is by no means idle! What does it do, this lunar human? — Well, it does the same thing it did during the lunar era: it dreams. And since, when we are awake, we generally do not perceive the dreams active in the subconscious, we do not notice this at first. You go through the world—just as you go through the world with your waking consciousness—with the content of these dreams. Even if you know nothing of this dreamer, other beings do. These other beings are the beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi; and what this dreamer dreams becomes a mental image in the souls of the Angeloi, who elevate it to their own mental image.

[ 10 ] So during the Lunar Age, this dreamer developed the level of consciousness that was possible at all during that time. When the Earth human came into being, this dreamer crept into him; but what he experiences is now developed by the Angeloi into clear, conscious mental images—and for them, these are imaginations. They transform our dreams into imaginations. So the dreamer within us becomes a mental image for the beings of the Angeloi hierarchy, and they turn it into imaginations. Thus we can say: What the lunar human dreams, the Angelos imagines.

[ 11 ] Now you will be able to easily ascend to the other, which may present itself to you schematically, but is this schema true? The Solar Man has even more dull mental images within us—mental images such as those possessed by plants. So we carry not only the dreamer within us, but also a kind of plant-human who is actually always asleep, just as plants sleep. His vague mental images become inspirations in the beings of the hierarchy of the Archangeloi. So that one can say: What the Solar Man experiences in his sleep, the Archangelos inspires.

[ 12 ] Within us, the Saturn-man lies in an even deeper sleep; he sleeps as deeply as the minerals do. This Saturnian human, in turn, provides the beings of the Hierarchy of the Archai—through his deeply slumbering mental images—with the material, the possibility of intuition. So that we can say: What the Saturnian human is in his deep sleep, the Spirit of Personality, the primal force, intuits.

[ 13 ] However, you can only gain a true understanding if you realize that imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions are not abstract constructs like our thoughts, ideas, and mental images; rather, imaginations already possess something real, and inspirations something even more real. For inspirations do not remain confined within a being; rather, they resound out into the world, becoming the music of the spheres and creating something in the world. Intuitions penetrate the very essence of things, filling the world. What the Saturn-human is in his deep sleep, the spirits of the personality send out into the world as intuitions.

[ 14 ] That is how it is today. But in the future, the Earth will undergo further development. And then the intuitions of the spirits of personality will become ever denser and denser. At present, they are still extraordinarily subtle formations; but as we move from the fifth into the sixth and seventh Earth ages, these intuitions will become ever denser and denser. The Earth will pass away, but these intuitions will be preserved in the souls of the spirits of personality. When, however, the Earth has become Jupiter, these spirits of personality will ascend to the rank of spirits of form; then these impulses, which they have learned to form during the Earth era, will become forms, and because these are Saturn forms, they will be mineral forms. So we can say: At the end of the Earth era, these intuitions will become dense cosmic impulses and later, on Jupiter, forms. (See drawing on page 99).

[ 15 ] But when they take on form on Jupiter, they constitute the very mineral foundation of Jupiter. During the second stage of Earth’s evolution, the spirits of personality continually work their way into our Saturn-human; they gain the impulses that they then radiate out into the world; these then radiate forms outward, but these forms are Jupiter. Jupiter will be nothing other than these forms. We therefore carry a Saturn-human within us; but because this Saturn-human is involved in the activity of the spirits of personality, it is the seed for Jupiter. Jupiter will have to acquire everything that will constitute its mineral foundation from what we carry within us as the Saturn-human.

[ 16 ] And now you can see the role of the spirits of personality during Earth’s evolution. But you also see that, if this is the case, through everything we develop in this way, we could only develop a mineral Jupiter. And this mineral Jupiter will develop under any circumstances. That is assured, and it is a certainty in the course of cosmic evolution that this mineral Jupiter will develop. But now consider that this Jupiter would not yet possess anything corresponding to plants, animals, or human beings. We ourselves, as human beings, could not exist on this Jupiter; for the hidden part within us—the Saturn-human—is transformed into this Jupiter through the fact that this Saturn-human, in its deep sleep, dreams of the mental image that the Earth-human creates in its consciousness.

[ 17 ] You see, the Solar Man cannot bring about anything real within us under such circumstances. The Archangelos would only give rise to inspirations, and if everything were to continue as described so far, the mineralic Jupiter would arise, and inspirations—dense inspirations, to be sure—would wash over this mineralic Jupiter, but they would merely wash over it. For something to arise that corresponds to our plant growth, something else must be added; we must develop something else outside the earthly human being. And this is nothing other than what the earthly human being can never experience with his physical body: it is what we take in from Spiritual Science. I therefore wish to call this human being the spiritual-scientific human being—however strange this name may sound—the spiritual-scientific human being who lifts himself up to that which transcends the Earth itself.

[ 18 ] The Sun-Man within us can now truly make good use of what we take in through Spiritual Science. He can transform his dull, plant-like mental images—which lie dormant—into inspirations, and these will become ever denser and denser during the remainder of the Earth’s time; and they will bring about not only an indefinite spherical harmony wafting over Jupiter, but also that this spherical harmony will become specific plant growth, just as it has happened with the plants on Earth: they were created by the harmony of the spheres and then brought forth by the light.

[ 19 ] So we can say: If the evolution that the Earth has produced on its own—which does not lead to the human being of Spiritual Science—were to be the only one to fill the Earth in the future, then only a mineral Jupiter would be brought into being here in the universe. This is what all materialistic worldviews are working toward. Deep down in their souls, materialists actually detest the idea that Jupiter will also be plant-like. Deep down in their souls, they actually want nothing other than for Jupiter to be purely mineral. And if one were to examine all materialistic science today—the laboratories, cabinets, and so on—one would see how everything is working toward the creation of a purely mineral Jupiter. And without Spiritual Science, this would be nothing but dead slag, containing not even the slightest trace of plant growth.

[ 20 ] What the beings of the Archangeloi hierarchy are currently able to bring about on Jupiter—which corresponds to plant growth—we prepare by elevating ourselves to Spiritual Science. So that we can say: What the solar human experiences in sleep will, at the end of the Earth era, mature into cosmic impulses for the plant world of Jupiter, transmitted by the Archangels.

[ 21 ] And so let us now become aware of the cosmic task of Spiritual Science: let us learn to recognize that through our work in Spiritual Science, we are truly giving the beings of the hierarchy of the Archangeloi the opportunity to carry a plant cover over to Jupiter. What the Solar Being within us experiences through mental images of Spiritual Science, the Archangels can use to develop plant growth on Jupiter.

[ 22 ] Then there will come a time in the Earth’s evolution when those who have become spiritual scientists will say: Spiritual Science is everything; Spiritual Science is the ultimate salvation; and all those who pursue anything other than Spiritual Science in their souls are fantasists and dreamers! — The spiritual scientists will speak of these others just as the materialists speak of us. But just as today’s spiritual scientists stand in relation to the materialists, so in the future there will be a small handful of people who will go beyond Spiritual Science to something that, in that future, will stand in relation to Spiritual Science as something as new as Spiritual Science now stands in relation to mere external science. This will place even greater demands on human activity than Spiritual Science, which is already considered so inconvenient. It will be something that the dreamer within the human being—the Moon-human—will dream in an immensely more intense way than the Sun-human can naturally experience the mental images of Spiritual Science in sleep today. But what the dreamer within us will be able to experience in a future time will be grasped and worked out by the beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, and they will carry it over to Jupiter in the same way, and on the basis of the mineral and plant kingdoms on Jupiter, establish something corresponding to the animal kingdom. So that we can say: The dream images of the lunar human—or the dreamer within the human—will be transformed by the Angeloi into condensed imaginations for Jupiter, forming the foundation of an animal kingdom.

[ 23 ] Then, finally, something else will come about during the Earth’s evolution. We look into a future in which we can sense something so wonderful. What comes then will be the seed that enables Earth’s humanity to establish its own realm on Jupiter—to establish something new.

[ 24 ] So whatever can be developed today with the help of the Earth human will continue to progress, and then, after a period in which ever new things will have been developed, something will come about that this Earth human can now recognize as the highest flowering of Earth’s spiritual development. And from this knowledge—as the highest flowering of Earth’s spiritual development—will arise that which will enable the Earth human to continue on Jupiter through his own efforts. So that one can say: The mental images of the Earth human, through the soul content of the most highly developed people at the end of the Earth era, will become impulses for humanity’s development on Jupiter.

[ 25 ] Our spirits of personality will then have ascended to become spirits of form; our Archangeloi will have ascended to become spirits of personality; our Angeloi will have ascended to become Archangeloi; humankind will have ascended to the rank of Angeloi. Then, drawing upon the highest mental images of the Earth human, he will be able to continue the development of the Jupiter spirit within the hierarchy of the Jupiter angels—which he himself will embody. What is developed at the end of the Earth era will then bear some resemblance to what existed toward the end of the Atlantean era, which served to inaugurate the actual development of the Earth.

[ 26 ] Thus we see that we can look deeply into the direction our path is taking in the cosmos. And when one can say to oneself: Now, having evolved up to our time, human beings have unfolded into all that the earthly human being can offer, and we are now beginning with that which the earthly human being can no longer offer—that which must be experienced outside the earthly human being—when one says this to oneself, one knows why one pursues Spiritual Science. One knows that this pursuit of Spiritual Science truly has a cosmic meaning; and one senses how brutally abstract the questions posed by philosophical minds are: What is humanity’s ultimate goal? One has enough to do simply striving toward the next goal.

[ 27 ] And one might ask: Can’t such a Spiritual Science—one that becomes aware of its role within the entire cosmos—truly move our hearts and engage our minds and emotions? After all, we feel what we carry within us as a seed for the future of the cosmos! And we can transform the mere knowledge we carry within us into emotional and spiritual content.

[ 28 ] And let us be clear about this: Everything that constitutes the physical world of Earth will perish; it will enter a period that is not merely one of slumber, but of destruction; and something new must come into being. From what must this new thing arise?

[ 29 ] Yes, nothing new arises from the stones of the Earth, from the plants of the Earth, from the animals of the Earth, or from the physical bodies of the Earth. They are there to shed their outer layers. But from the Saturn-human you carry within yourself, the mineral Jupiter arises. Just as it is true that nothing from the chicken running before you lives on in the other chicken—which will be its offspring—except for the tiny germ in the egg, so too does nothing on the entire Earth live on for the future Jupiter except for the Saturn germs that live within the human body. That is all that passes through the Pralaya to Jupiter. Everything else falls away from the physical Earth. I am not speaking now of souls, but of the physical Earth.

[ 30 ] And if anyone should have the mental image that the physical Earth is also undergoing a transformation, that is a vague mental image, for the concrete reality is that everything is scattered into the world, with the exception of all these Saturn seeds, which are absorbed by the Archai and from which the atoms—the mineral atoms of Jupiter—are formed. I once hinted at something similar many years ago in Berlin in a small circle, when I tried to explain what a childish mental image it is to imagine the Earth’s atoms the way physicists do. Rather, we must create a mental image of these atoms as the innermost essence of the lunar human—that is, the human who lived on the Moon at that time—but utilized by those beings who preceded humanity on the Moon and who transformed this innermost essence of the human into Earth atoms. Today it is no longer within the Saturnian human, but within the Earth itself.

[ 31 ] Such an atom is, in reality, something in comparison to which the physicist’s mental image of the atom is a completely childish notion. For this atom actually came into being in a very complex way. Imagine that the atom must arise from what humanity developed on Saturn and preserved during the Sun, Moon, and Earth eras, and which must then be transformed into atoms for Jupiter by the spirits of the personality—who will become spirits of form on Jupiter. That is how complex the world is.

[ 32 ] I have often pointed out the way of thinking that underlies these things. I have said: Let’s assume it is three o’clock in the afternoon. At three o’clock in the afternoon, two people are standing next to each other. We come along and say: Person A is standing there with Person B. We then walk away and tell this to a third person. But let’s assume that Person A has remained standing here from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon, while Person B walked here until noon, then back, and arrived here at three. Then we have observed the same situation: two people standing next to each other. But the person who stood or sat there for six hours will be in a different state than the person who walked back and forth there for six hours. Internally, people are fundamentally different, and that is what matters; people are not of equal value, but of different value.

[ 33 ] This is meant to show you that what matters is not the observation of a set of facts, but how those facts came about. For example, someone who examines living organisms under a microscope is not really examining their innermost nature, but only the external facts. And that is, in essence, the content of all biological science: external facts, such as the fact that at three o’clock two people are observed standing next to each other. Of course, people will say: “I do not merely observe the fact, but I track its development”—but they track only the physical development; that is, they are always looking at a fact.

[ 34 ] This has given rise to the misconception that conflates phenomena which have entirely different meanings in the various kingdoms of nature—for example, death in animals and humans, not to mention in plants. Death is by no means the same phenomenon in the animal and human kingdoms, because human death occurs in a being that has undergone the Earth, Moon, Sun, and Saturn stages of development; the animal has undergone part of the Earth stage, as well as the Moon and Sun stages. Consequently, death in animals is a completely different phenomenon than in humans. If one judges so abstractly as to confuse death in animals with death in humans, one might just as well describe the evaporation of a drop of mercury as death. And I have already said that people in our time truly judge in this way. Certain biologists, who consider themselves particularly advanced, say: since some plants have the ability to devour insects, these plants possess something similar to the animal or human soul. — They say this based on an external analogy. The logic behind this is no greater than saying that a mousetrap also has a soul.

[ 35 ] This is the monstrously external element that has gradually emerged in our spiritual development—this monstrously external element that gives the impression, I might say, of a horribly beautiful logic, but which stems solely from an insubstantial, dead, Ahrimanic way of thinking. People will increasingly gravitate toward this kind of thinking unless they are inspired by Spiritual Science.

[ 36 ] All these considerations ultimately aim to truly impress upon us the importance of bringing Spiritual Science into human development on Earth. We must look closely at what appears to be logical but is in reality lifeless and dead—the state to which the Ahrimanic culture of the present has led us; this Ahrimanic culture of the present, which can do nothing else but hand over the key, just like Mephistopheles. But we must develop a Faustian attitude toward what the Ahrimanic spirits call “nothingness”; we must cultivate the attitude: “In your nothingness I hope to find the universe.”

[ 37 ] But we must allow this idea to permeate us completely. We must not believe that we can carry over anything from the habits of thought of the old culture into the new one. We do not do this consciously, of course, but unconsciously, Ahriman can time and again become our tempter. The important thing is that we take in the profound impact of Spiritual Science, even if it is uncomfortable. A culture based on Spiritual Science truly requires seriousness—deep seriousness in devotion. Therefore, all—absolutely all—the forces of human soul development must be directed toward the impulses that can arise from Spiritual Science. And what I am about to say is nothing more than a completely objective—I would say, objectively admonishing—remark.

[ 38 ] In one of my recent lectures, I mentioned the idea that must be carried out once we have completed our building: the group to be erected in the east, with the representative of humanity—you may call him Christ, if you wish—in the center; with Lucifer above, plummeting with broken wings; Ahriman below, crouching in a cave, feeling defeated. So that is one idea. What will become of this matter will only truly be seen once the group has been fully erected. For what is meant here includes not only what is expressed in these few words, but every feature in the faces of Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. If someone were to attempt to create a composition based on this idea, they would do so using traditional methods, and that would be entirely wrong; it would be a symbolic representation of an idea, derived from materialistic art. Or else it would have to be derived from clairvoyant perception, like the group over there. Every single form must be created artistically—I would say, out of the primordial elements. This is truly possible only if one can immerse oneself quite seriously in the impulses of Spiritual Science. But one must take one’s time; one cannot continue working with the old artistic methods.

[ 39 ] It is difficult to incorporate Spiritual Science into all cultural movements; but from everything that has been said, the necessity for doing so is already evident. Of course, this cannot happen overnight, but can only take place very gradually. A start must be made. If one were not aware that our building is meant to be only a beginning, one would view it entirely incorrectly. It will take a long, long time to achieve what was intended with it.

[ 40 ] It is truly a matter of transforming the entire constitution and disposition of our soul into something different from what it could have become up to now through what the Earth-human has contributed. Of course, it would be just as wrong if, for example, someone were to say: “Then everything the Earth-human has contributed is wrong; so let’s do away with it.” — That would be entirely wrong, for the Earth-human carries within himself the Lunar, Solar, and Saturn-human, and the new human of Spiritual Science must in turn also carry the Earth-human within himself. We must carry within us this past Earth culture. It is therefore not unnecessary to familiarize ourselves with everything we can know and understand from past Earth culture.

[ 41 ] But we must, in all humility—not with pride or arrogance, but in all humility—allow ourselves to be imbued with a kind of consciousness of Spiritual Science. It would not be good at all if the people who belong to the Spiritual Science movement were to keep saying over and over again: What we do is esoteric; what you do is exoteric! We are doing something completely new!

[ 42 ] That would not be good, for it is merely spurred on by pride—just as so many things within the Spiritual Science movement can easily be spurred on by pride. The less one heard such things, the better it would be. But on the other hand, the more one were to strive for the entire mood of the soul to be embraced by Spiritual Science, the better it would be.

[ 43 ] It’s hard to believe how one-sided all words—everything, everything—are used these days, how people can speak without making an effort to understand others or to put themselves in the other person’s shoes. All of this must disappear if the impulses of Spiritual Science are truly to take root in people’s souls. And much of what has now reached a peak is precisely what Spiritual Science is meant to eradicate. In our sad times, one sees people waging war with words; one sees how one group passes judgment on another. The Spiritual Science scientist must come to realize that such judgments are really no more valid than when two people argue over what something is. (A house is drawn.) One says: “That’s a house.” — The other says: “Nope, that’s la maison!”

[ 44 ] That’s a stark way of putting it, but the discussions being conducted with such passion today are certainly of that caliber. It just looks strange when you present something complicated in such a simple, stark form. But it’s good to take a moment to reflect on the connection between today’s major global debates and this simplicity. You’ll then see what this comparison is really all about.

[ 45 ] And when we look back on some of the spiritual truths that have come before our souls in recent times, we will be able to strengthen ourselves again and again in the feeling we can develop toward the impulses of Spiritual Science. When we consider that what the earthly human being contributes in terms of spiritual culture will form the inner framework of Jupiter; that what we pursue in Spiritual Science will form the future plant germ of Jupiter; that what is to come in the future will form the future animal kingdom of Jupiter; and if we then truly take seriously that within our Saturn human lies the germ of the physical shell of Jupiter, that within our Sun human lies that which we must transform into the plant covering of Jupiter, and that within our Lunar human lies what will be transformed into the animal world of Jupiter, and that everything belonging to the Earth—including the stars, which also enter into the Pralaya—will pass away—if we reflect on all this, then we will become disciples of the One who said:

[ 46 ] “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away!”

[ 47 ] For heaven and earth are that which is renewed by the person of Spiritual Science, by the magical human being. Everything will pass away, but “my words” will give rise to what becomes the cosmic formation of worlds.

[ 48 ] Spiritual Science must also lead us to understand words such as these spoken by Christ:

[ 49 ] “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”