The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] What I said yesterday opens up the possibility of discussing in even greater detail some of the events that have taken place in the course of Earth’s evolution and that have shaped our Earth as it is today. You will recall that I said one can, through observation and insight, enter into a certain relationship with the Earth’s metallic nature—with all that is essentially present in the Earth due to the fact that it is permeated by metal veins, and that the Earth itself carries within it the metallic, the various forms of the metallic. This connection that one can enter into with the Earth’s metallic nature gives one the opportunity to look back on what has happened to the Earth.

[ 2 ] Now it is particularly interesting to look at what took place in the Earth’s evolution roughly during the periods preceding the Atlantean era—which I have, somewhat loosely, called the Lemurian Age—and also to examine what occurred in the immediately preceding period, when the Earth repeated the solar stage. During the Lemurian period, it repeated the lunar stage. It is interesting to look back on all these events, for they give one an impression of how changeable everything is in the realm of earthly existence.

[ 3 ] Today, we are accustomed to viewing the Earth, so to speak, as a self-contained entity in the form in which it presents itself to us. As human beings, we live on the continents, surrounded by all that the Earth is capable of sustaining—plants, land animals, birds, and so on. We know that we ourselves live in a kind of sea of air—the atmosphere—that surrounds the Earth; that we take in oxygen from this sea of air, but that our relationship to nitrogen also plays a certain role. Yet we generally imagine that we are simply surrounded by the atmosphere, consisting of oxygen and nitrogen. We then look out at the oceans and seas and get—I need not mention further details—a picture of what we conceive of as the planet we inhabit in the universe. Now, you see, the Earth was not always as it is today; rather, it has undergone very profound and tremendous transformations. If we go back to the time periods I just referred to—if we go back to the Lemurian era and a little further still—we’ll find that the Earth’s composition was quite different from what it is today.

[ 4 ] Let us take as our starting point the atmospheric sphere in which we now live, and which we ourselves regard as inanimate, as lifeless. Even this atmosphere appears to us as something entirely different. And if we go further back, even in this earliest period of Earth’s development we can already observe something akin to what the solid Earth’s core is today, so to speak, with the atmosphere surrounding it. A similar diagram would indeed emerge for these earlier times as well; but there can be no question of there being anything in the vast sphere I have drawn—as there is today with the air we breathe—that corresponds to what we have described for these earlier times. In the air we breathe today, oxygen and nitrogen play the most prominent roles; carbon and hydrogen play a lesser role; and sulfur or even phosphorus play an even more insignificant role.

[ 5 ] Actually, it is not really possible to speak of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, and so on in relation to those earlier times, simply because what chemists today refer to by those names did not exist at all in those earlier times.

[ 6 ] You see, if a spirit being from that time were to encounter a modern chemist who spoke of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on, that being would say: “Such things do not exist.” For just as there is a possibility of speaking of these things today, so there was no such possibility of speaking of them back then. Oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, as we speak of them today, are possible only when the Earth has reached a certain density and possesses the forces it has today. Oxygen, nitrogen, potassium, sodium, and so on—all the lighter so-called metals—did not exist at all in that earlier time. In contrast, in this Earth’s environment, here within this sphere that once formed what we today call the atmosphere, there was something that was incredibly fine and fluid, somewhere between our present-day water and air in the middle; it was fine-liquid, but in its fine-liquid state it was similar to egg white. So that, in fact, the Earth was completely surrounded at that time by an egg-white atmosphere. The egg white in a chicken egg today is much coarser, but it can still be compared to it.

[ 7 ] This Earthly environment was such that, as the Earth later became denser, the elements we now call carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and so on separated out and differentiated from this environment. But it was not the case that this protein atmosphere of that time was composed of these elements; for it did not contain these individual substances as components. Today, people generally assume that everything is composed of such elements; but that is nonsense. What is known as certain higher-order substances is not always composed of what appears when one analyzes it; rather, these elements cease to exist within the higher substance. Carbon is not carbon in there, oxygen is not oxygen, and so on—instead, it is a higher-order substance. And as I said, in terms of its properties, I can describe it as a very, very fluid protein. But this entire substance that surrounded the Earth at that time was permeated from the outer universe by cosmic ether, which animated this entire substance. So we must imagine the cosmic ether as penetrating into this substance and animating it.

[ 8 ] It was because this cosmic ether penetrated it that this substance lived. But it did not merely live; it also differentiated itself in a peculiar way. In one place, for instance, a larger formation appeared in which one could have suffocated; in another place, a larger formation appeared in which one could have come to life with particular vigor, had one already been there as a human being, and so on. There were no chemical elements in the modern sense present within it, but formations arose that were reminiscent of the effects of today’s chemical elements. Then the whole was interwoven with reflections of light, glimmers of light, radiations of light, and sparkles of light. And finally, the whole was warmed by the world-ether.

[ 9 ] All of these were characteristics of the Earth’s atmosphere at that time, if I may use today’s terminology. The first thing that formed as it came in from the cosmos is what I described yesterday: the first primeval mountains. They formed as they came in from the cosmos. So the quartz crystals that you find out there in the primeval mountains—with their beautiful form and relative transparency—were, so to speak, formed by the universe as it entered the Earth. That is why, when the imaginative observer today immerses himself in these primeval mountain rocks—in what are now the hardest formations on Earth—they serve as his eyes looking out into the universe. But the cosmos has also implanted these eyes into the Earth; they are there within. The cosmos has implanted them into the Earth. Only, the quartz-like, silica-like substance that penetrated the entire atmosphere and gradually settled as primeval mountains was not as hard as it is today. It was only later, through subsequent conditions, that it underwent the hardening process that has left it in its present state within the primordial mountains. Everything that formed there from the universe was, at that time, scarcely harder than wax.

[ 10 ] So, if you go into the primordial mountains today and see a quartz crystal that is so hard—as I mentioned elsewhere today: your skull would shatter, but the quartz wouldn’t, if you were to bump into it—back then, all of that was, through the life that permeated everything, soft as wax, truly soft as wax, so that one could say: The rocks of the primordial mountains come from the cosmos like dripping wax. And all of this is transparent; as it pushes its way in from the cosmos, its relative hardness—its “wax-like hardness”—can only be described by applying the sense of touch to it: if you could touch it, you would feel it just as you feel wax.

[ 11 ] Thus, the primordial mountains are formed from the wax that trickles in from the cosmos and then hardens. Silicic acid takes on the form of wax during the time it is transported from the cosmos into the Earth. And what is present today in a more spiritual form—and what I described to you yesterday, namely that when one immerses oneself in this dense rock, one sees images of the cosmos—was quite vividly present back then, and indeed so much so that when such a piece—forgive me for using the expression, but it actually describes it quite accurately — a wax pebble—became visible in its transparency, one could discern within it something like a kind of plant image. Anyone who has looked around in nature will know that—one might say as a mark of an ancient time—such things can still be found today in the mineral world. You find rocks, you pick them up, you look at them, and you see in them something as if there were an image of a plant within them. But back then, this was something quite common—what entered the atmosphere, this protein atmosphere, was carried along, so to speak, like images that were not merely seen, but like images that had been physically photographed within this waxy body—so that these images were carried in from the cosmos.

[ 12 ] And then something peculiar began to take shape: the liquid protein that was present filled these images; as a result, they became somewhat harder, somewhat denser; they were then no longer images. The siliceous material fell away from them, dispersing into the surrounding atmosphere, and in the earliest Lemurian period we find the mighty floating plant formations—reminiscent of our present-day algae—that were not rooted in the ground—such a ground did not yet exist at all —which formed their own substance from this liquid protein, permeating it, swimming within this liquid protein, but not merely swimming; rather, the situation was such that they glowed, I might say, lit up, then faded away, reappeared, and faded away again. They were mutable; mutable to the point that they came into being and vanished.

[ 13 ] Just imagine that. It’s basically a picture that looks very different from what we see around us today. If a person today could transport themselves back to that time—say, if they could set up a little guardhouse like that somewhere and sit inside observing, just as our friends who stand guard here at the Goetheanum do today—and look out into that ancient world, they would see everywhere: a plant image emerges—a mighty plant image, as I said, similar to our modern-day algae or even palm trees— but it shoots up—it does not grow out of the earth in the spring and wither away in the fall, but rather it shoots up, appearing in the spring—the spring season is much shorter—and then it reaches its full might, only to disappear again into the liquid, protein-like element. Such an observer would witness this sight of the ever-greening and ever-regreening. And he would not speak of the plants that cover the earth, but rather of the plants that appear from the cosmos like clouds of air, become dense, and then dissolve—a greening within the protein-like atmosphere. And one would say of what would roughly correspond to our present-day summer: It is the time when the Earth’s surroundings turn green. But one would look up toward the green more than down. In this way, one gains the impression of how the siliceous element of the Earth’s atmosphere draws into the earthly realm and attracts to itself the plant force that is actually out there in the cosmos; how the plant world descends from the cosmos onto the Earth. But in the period I am speaking of, it is indeed the case that one must say: This plant world arises and passes away within the atmosphere.

[ 14 ] And there is something else that must be said: When one is a human being today and, through one’s connection to the Earth’s metallic nature, is transported back to those times, it feels as if all of that were part of oneself, as if one had some connection to what once sprouted and flourished in the atmosphere. Truly, when you recall your own childhood today, it is a memory of a brief span of time. But when you remember a pain you experienced in childhood, that is something that belongs to you. In this cosmic recollection, stimulated by the Earth’s metallic nature, this process of greening and becoming green becomes something that belongs to you. Back then, human beings were already connected to the Earth, which existed within this watery, protein-rich atmosphere, but in such a way that, as human beings, they were still entirely spiritual. Yet one is expressing a truth when one says—and one must simultaneously grasp the idea—that these plants one sees there in the atmosphere are, for that time, secretions, excretions of the human. Human beings excrete these from their being, which is still one with the entire Earth. And they must still have a conception of what they are excreting as something entirely different. For the following also occurs. Everything I have described so far is brought about by the fact that, earlier on, the silicic acid-like substance had already been deposited in the atmosphere in the waxy form I spoke of. But otherwise, this protein atmosphere is present everywhere. The cosmos acts upon it; the infinitely manifold forces that radiate down from the cosmos onto the Earth everywhere act upon it—those forces of which our present-day knowledge refuses to acknowledge anything. That is why our present-day understanding is not real understanding at all, because the most diverse processes taking place on Earth simply would not occur if they were not brought about everywhere by cosmic impulses and cosmic forces. Since today’s scholars do not speak of these cosmic forces at all, they do not speak of reality at all. They take no account whatsoever of that which is actually alive. Even in the smallest specimen viewed through any microscope, it is not only earthly forces but cosmic forces that are at work. And without taking these into account, one does not grasp reality.

[ 15 ] So that is how the cosmic forces acted upon this liquid protein in the Earth’s environment back then. And these cosmic forces acted upon certain parts of this protein in such a way that they caused it to coagulate, so that one could see cosmically coagulated protein everywhere. It floated there inside: cosmically coagulated protein. But this cosmically coagulated protein was not just any kind of cloud; rather, it was living beings in specific forms. They were actually animals composed of this coagulated protein, which had developed to the density of gelatin, indeed to the density of our present-day cartilage. Such gelatinous creatures existed in this liquid protein atmosphere. They had the form found on a small scale in our reptiles, our lizards, and the like; but they were not of such density—rather, they existed within this gelatinous mass and were capable of moving within themselves. At times they had long limbs, at other times their limbs were drawn back into themselves; in short, everything about them was like that of a snail, which can retract its feelers.

[ 16 ] Now you see, while that out there was forming, what you find today as the Earth’s limestone components had already been deposited in the Earth—in addition to the siliceous material from outer space. If you don’t go to the primordial mountains, but simply head out into the Jurassic, you’ll find this limestone. This limestone arrived later, but it, too, came to Earth from the cosmos just like the siliceous material, so that we thus have the calcareous material here in the Earth as the second component.

[ 17 ] But this calcareous substance is constantly seeping in, and essentially, this calcareous substance causes the Earth’s core to become denser and denser. And in certain locations, siliceous matter then becomes integrated with the calcareous substance. But this calcareous substance retains the cosmic forces. Lime is still something quite different from the coarse matter that today’s chemists imagine it to be. Lime contains formative forces that, for the most part, cannot be released.

[ 18 ] And now here is something peculiar: if we move to a time somewhat later than the one I described to you regarding the onset of greening, we find that this entire protein atmosphere actually involves a continuous rising and falling of lime. Calcium vapor forms, and then calcium rain falls. There was a time on Earth when what is today merely evaporated water and falling rain was a calcareous substance that rose and fell again, rising and sinking. And this is where the peculiarity arises: this calcium has a special attraction to this gelatinous substance, to these cartilaginous masses. It penetrates them and impregnates them with itself. And through the earth forces that are within it—I told you, the earth forces are within it—it dissolves the entire gelatinous mass that has formed there as coagulated protein. The calcium takes from the heavens what the heavens have formed in the protein substance and brings it closer to the earth. And from this, animals with calcareous bones gradually emerge. This is something that develops in the later Lemurian period.

[ 19 ] So that in plants, in their most ancient form, we must first see pure gifts from heaven, and in animals and in all animal formation we must see something that the earth—after heaven had given it lime—took from heaven—truly snatched it away!—and turned it into an earthly formation. These are the things that strike one as so remarkable from this most ancient time, and with which one feels thoroughly connected, so that one now perceives this entire process as a process of the human being expanded, so to speak, into the cosmos.

[ 20 ] Such things sound paradoxical, of course, because they touch on a reality that people today usually cannot even imagine, but they contain the full truth. Isn’t it true that it corresponds to an absolute reality today when one says from memory: “When I was a nine-year-old boy or a nine-year-old girl, I sometimes gave my friend a good beating.” That is something that wells up from within. You may or may not be pleased by it; you may feel pain over it, but it simply wells up from within. Thus, in this human consciousness—expanded through its kinship with the metallic realm and becoming an earthly consciousness—the following wells up: By forming your entire being from heaven down to earth, you separated the plants from yourself as you descended. They are a separation from you. You have also separated the animal being; in the form of congealed gelatin or cartilaginous mass, you initially intended it to be a product of your separation. But then you had to realize how earlier earthly forces had taken this from you and formed the animal forms in a different way, where they are a result of the Earth’s formation. — In exactly the same way, one can view this in a cosmic memory as one’s own experience, just as one can view the other example I mentioned as an experience of one’s brief earthly life. As I said, one feels connected to it as a human being.

[ 21 ] But all of this is, of course, linked to all sorts of other processes. I am, so to speak, sketching out the main processes for you. Many other things are happening as well. For example, while what I have just described was taking place, the entire atmosphere was still filled with finely dispersed sulfur. This finely dispersed sulfur combines with other substances, and from this combination of the finely dispersed sulfur with other substances arise, I would say, the “fathers” or “mothers” of everything that is present today in the ores as pyrite, galena, sphalerite, and so on. So all of this forms in an earlier state—in a soft, still dense, wax-like form—during that time. As a result, the Earth’s body becomes permeated by such substances. And then, when these very ores—this metallic substance—emerge from the general protein-like substance and form the solid Earth’s crust, the metals actually have little else to do within it—unless human beings do something with them—but to reflect on what has happened. And this is indeed what one finds in them. One finds them in a state where, to the inner eye, they make present everything that has happened to the Earth. But now, having experienced this as one’s own cosmic—or at least telluric—experience, one says to oneself: By detaching all of this from yourself, by detaching what existed as the oldest form of plant life—which, after all, became the later plant forms—by detaching what stands there in the more complex form of animal development—as I have described it— you have detached from yourself that which previously prevented you from having a will within your own human being.

[ 22 ] Everything I have described to you here was necessary; human beings had to shed it, just as they must shed sweat or other substances today. Human beings had to shed this so that they would no longer be beings in whom only the gods willed, but so that they could become beings with a will of their own—so that they could have a will of their own, even if it was not yet free. All of this was therefore necessary to prepare for the earthly nature of human beings.

[ 23 ] Well, as many other things happened, all of that changed. Of course, once the ores were there, separated within the earth, the entire atmosphere changed as well. It became different; it contained far less sulfur. Oxygen gradually gained the upper hand over sulfur, whereas in ancient times sulfur had played a very significant role in the Earth’s atmosphere. The entire Earth’s atmosphere became different. In this renewed environment, human beings were able to bring forth something else from within themselves, to secrete something else. What they now secreted appears to be the descendants of the earlier plants and the early animals. Now, gradually, the later plant forms began to develop, ones that took root, though still in a thoroughly soft earthen substance. And from what were reptiles—lizard-like animals—more complex animals emerged, the kind that modern geology still finds in fossils and the like. Nothing remains of the very earliest forms I have spoken of here. Only what arose in the later epoch, in which humanity—so to speak, a second time—produced more complex forms from within itself; only then did what I have described to you here exist—what I would say, were constantly emerging and vanishing cloud-like formations—greening, vegetating, soft-bodied, animal-like figures—which were, however, real animals; sometimes they coalesced and had a life of their own, and at other times they dissolved back into the general life of the Earth, for that was the case with all these beings. From all of this arose something that was more firmly established within itself.

[ 24 ] And so creatures like this one emerged—one that, if you were to draw it somewhat schematically, looked like this for that time: it had a very large eye-like organ with a sort of aura; attached to it was a sort of snout, which, incidentally, extended forward; then something like a lizard’s body, but with powerful fins. So something emerged that was already a more solid structure. We have such animals that have something like—I might just as well say wings as fins. For the animal was by no means a sea creature—there was no sea at that time; it was a soft mass of earth and the still-soft element of the surrounding area, from which only sulfur had been somewhat removed. But in there, such an animal flew or swam—it was an activity somewhere between flying and swimming.

[ 25 ] In addition, there were other animals that did not have this type of limb, but rather limbs that were already shaped more by the forces of the Earth itself, limbs that were already reminiscent of those of today’s lower mammals, and so on.

[ 26 ] Thus, a person who, starting from the present day, were to travel not through space but through time—backward into that era connecting the Lemurian and Atlantean ages—would be presented with a remarkable sight: enormous flying lizards with a lantern on their heads that glows and gives off warmth; below, something like soft, marshy earth, which, however, has something extraordinarily inviting about it, because it would offer today’s visitor a scent that lies somewhere between the smell of decay and the fragrance of the verdant plants growing right in the midst of it. This soft, muddy earth would offer something alluring on the one hand and extraordinarily appealing on the other. And in there, moving like swamp creatures, are these other animals, which already have more limbs and resemble today’s lower mammals, but which are so broadened at the bottom that they have such powerful structures there (it is recorded)—more powerful, of course, than the ducks’ — discs with which they move through this swamp, but also rock back and forth.

[ 27 ] You see, humanity had to go through all this separation so that human beings could develop the capacity to feel independently during their earthly existence.

[ 28 ] Thus we have an initial plant-animal creation, which actually consists of products secreted by the human being, and which prepared the way for him to become a willing being as an earthly human being. If all of that had remained within him, it would have taken over his will. His volition would have become an entirely physical process. By excreting these substances, the physical aspect has been separated from him, and volition takes on a soul-like character. Similarly, through this second creation, feeling also takes on a soul-like character. And it is not until the later Atlantean period—around the middle of the Atlantean period—that mammals and these plants emerge—plants and animals that are already similar to our own. By then, the Earth had already taken on a form that looked quite similar to what it is today. Consequently, the chemical substances—the substances known to today’s chemists—already existed. Gradually, this gave rise to carbon, oxygen, the alkali metals, the heavy metals, and the like. These are already emerging at that time. With these, however, human beings can separate the Third from themselves—that which they find today in their surroundings as the plant and animal world. And as they separate this, as the creation surrounding them comes into being, they are prepared for their earthly existence as thinking beings.

[ 29 ] One can therefore say: Humanity at that time was not as divided as people are today, into separate individuals; it was a universal humanity, still of a spiritual-soul nature, sinking into the ether. For along with the ether flowing toward the Earth from the cosmos, this universal humanity itself came from the cosmos. It then also underwent the processes I have described in Occult Science: it came, departed again to the other planets, and returned once more during the Atlantean era. This took place as a side event. For every time such a separation occurred, humanity could not remain on Earth; it had to depart, so to speak, in order first to strengthen the inner forces, which were now of a much finer, soul-like nature. Then it descended once more. And so these processes are precisely what is described in even greater detail in my Occult Science. These processes are such that human beings—humanity, in fact—actually belong to the universe and prepare the earthly environment for themselves by sending their excretions—which constitute the other kingdoms of nature—into the earthly realm. There they are now in the earthly realm; there they surround human beings. And so human beings can say: By sending these excretions into the earthly realm, they have gradually developed within themselves that which endows them, as earthly human beings, with willing, feeling, and thinking. For what human beings are today—the thinking, feeling, and willing beings resting on an organic-physical foundation during the lifetime between birth and death— has, after all, only developed over time and is connected to the beings who, for the sake of human evolution, have separated themselves from the human realm over the course of time and, in this separation, have in turn transformed themselves into their present forms.

[ 30 ] From this it follows: it is indeed true that one does not merely speak in general and abstract terms about this kinship with the metallic nature of the Earth. Rather, when one becomes connected to this metallic aspect—which, as I have said, holds within itself the memory of the Earth’s events—then it is indeed the case that one can truly say something about what one remembers there; that one truly finds what I have told you today.

[ 31 ] And if you now imagine going back to even earlier times, all of this becomes even more fleeting, even more ethereal. Just consider the magnificent, majestic sight I described to you earlier: these waxy, flowing silicic acid formations in which images of the plant world appear, saturating themselves with the soft albumin, with the soft protein substance, thereby presenting a greening and revitalizing presence in the Earth’s environment—one looks up at them. Think about these things, and you will be able to say to yourself: Compared to today’s plants, which grow out of the earth from firm roots with firm leaves, or even compared to today’s trees with their sturdy trunks, all of this is a fleeting formation. How fleeting this is compared to a modern oak, which, though not itself proud of its oak-ness, is usually the source of pride for those living nearby, because in its frequent weakness they mistake it for the very oak-ness of the oak! If you compare this “oak-ness” of today’s oak with these—I would say—ethereal, fleeting plant forms that arise and vanish like shadows in the atmosphere, coming to life, condensing, and disappearing again; or if you compare—let’s take extreme examples — a modern hippopotamus or an elephant with its thick skin, or other beings living in flesh, with the beings of that time, which emerge from this general protein like coagulating egg white, are then seized by calcium, and are drawn down in a somewhat denser form into the animal realm of the earth as rudimentary bones—I must use this term more than just as an adjective: into the “animal realm” of the Earth—if you look at all of this, if you look at the density of today—I would say, the “elephantitis” of the Earth today—in contrast to what once was, then you will no longer be able to doubt that, if one goes back even further, one encounters something even more ephemeral.

[ 32 ] One then returns to a realm where there are only surging, weaving, and living formations of color that arise and pass away. And if you then take the description of the ancient Sun, the Earth’s predecessor, or of ancient Saturn, as I have given it in Occult Science, you will say: All of this is self-evident, once you realize that one must go back from what is here to something even earlier. There, the plant form—the floating plant form—absorbs the protein substance and itself becomes like a cloud formation. Even earlier, we are dealing with forms that arise solely from color processes that merely appear, as I have described them for the solar existence and the Saturnian existence.

[ 33 ] And so, as you trace back through the physical realm, you gradually move from the elephantine realm back through the finer physical realms to the spiritual. And in this way—by focusing your attention precisely on the concrete—you return to the spiritual origin of everything that belongs to the earthly realm. The Earth has its origin in the spiritual realm. This gives rise to a true insight. And I believe it is also a beautiful idea to be able to say to oneself: If you penetrate into the interior of the Earth and let the hard metals tell you what they remember, they will tell you: We were once so expanded into the vastness that we were not physical substances at all, but rather colorfulness floating in the spirit, existing, and weaving throughout the universe. — And so the memory of the Earth’s metals is what goes back to the state where every metal was a cosmic color that permeated the others; where the cosmos was essentially a kind of inner rainbow, a kind of spectrum, which then differentiated itself and only later became physical.

[ 34 ] And that is where the mere—I would say—theoretically conveyed impression one gets of the Earth’s metallic nature gives way to a moral impression. For every metal tells you at the same time: I come from the vastness of space and from far beyond the Earth. I come from the heavenly realms, and I have been drawn into the Earth’s interior, conjured here. But I await my redemption. For once again I shall fill the universe with my being. — And when one learns the language of the metals in this way, then gold speaks of the Sun, lead of Saturn, copper of Venus, and these metals tell us: Just as we once extended our reach—copper as far as Venus, lead as far as Saturn—so are we now enchanted here, and we will extend our reach outward once more when the Earth fulfills its task, so that humanity may now attain on Earth precisely that which it could attain only on Earth. For this is why we entered into this enchantment: so that humanity might become a free being on Earth. Once humanity has earned its freedom, then our demystification can begin anew.

[ 35 ] And this demystification has, in essence, been underway for a long time. One simply has to understand it. One must understand how the Earth will continue to evolve into the future, once again together with humankind.