The Rudolf Steiner Archive

23. The Influence of the Sun and Moon on Humans

My dear Theosophical friends!

[ 1 ] Our Spiritual Science, or Theosophy, as has often been emphasized here, will take on ever greater significance for people in the future, precisely because it will be called upon to provide answers to the great and small mysteries of life and the world—not only to those questions of existence that interest the narrower circles of those who wish to engage with science, but also to those questions that, so to speak, confront us at every turn in life. And fundamentally, one might say, humanity today has absolutely no conception of the significance that theosophy is destined to assume, given that humanity today seeks to educate itself about the most important questions of existence in a materialistic manner. However, in the not-too-distant future, people will come to realize that, so to speak, the very essentials are lacking everywhere if one attempts to construct a worldview from today’s conventional science that is meant to bring satisfaction and strength to existence and life.

[ 2 ] This is particularly evident in those questions that underwent a complete transformation under the influence of the strongly materialistic intellectual current of the nineteenth century—to such an extent that contemporary science and external human thought are, in fact, both at an impasse. Things will continue this way for a while yet, with people saying: We stand on the solid ground of what has been scientifically researched; we are creating for ourselves what is called a “monistic” worldview. But if this were to go on for too long, people would reach a point where their souls would be completely dried up, where they could no longer gain anything that might warm the soul—because it might shed light on the mysteries of the world—and where our soul could truly feel that it belongs to the great cosmic realities. And only when the soul can feel this can it find satisfaction within itself and gain comfort in the difficult days of life.

[ 3 ] In a lodge, it is fitting to occasionally discuss questions that illustrate precisely this important significance of theosophy. Let us therefore take up today a question that, so to speak, led science onto thin ice in the nineteenth century. This is illustrated quite vividly—and I would like to touch on this by way of introduction—by a remarkable scientific controversy that took place during the nineteenth century. It has been about fifty years since this dispute took place between two natural scientists whose names are well-known. We shall begin by examining this dispute so that we may then move on to what can show us how theosophy can shed light on the very issues that lead external science astray.

[ 4 ] There are two names associated with that controversy. One is that of the great naturalist who discovered the plant cell in the first half of the nineteenth century: Schleiden. We must realize that such things, which are commonplace in popular literature today, were actually achievements of the nineteenth century. And just as Schwann later discovered that the animal organism consists of cells, so Schleiden discovered in 1838 that the plant organism is composed of cells.

[ 5 ] And so one may say: Schleiden is one of those whose rigorous thinking in the field of natural science ranks him among the most significant figures of the nineteenth century. The other man who entered into a dispute with him—a figure no less significant, indeed in some respects even more so, at least in terms of what is called intellectual brilliance—is Gustav Theodor Fechner. He was particularly active in areas where questions arise at the boundary between the mental and physical worldviews, and, for example, in his book on “Psychophysics,” he described very elegant experiments showing how one can establish certain mathematical relationships between external life and inner life.

[ 6 ] What led to the dispute between him and Schleiden, however, was that Gustav Theodor Fechner wrote a book titled Zend-Avesta, in which he attempted—using a method quite different, of course, from that of theosophy—to speak of the animation of, for example, the plant kingdom or even the celestial bodies. Gustav Theodor Fechner was anything but a theosophist in the modern sense. For what theosophy offers us today is derived from the fact that spiritual researchers direct their clairvoyant perception toward the spiritual realities themselves. Just as external observation provides sensory facts, spiritual researchers provide the facts that are perceived spiritually. Gustav Theodor Fechner did not proceed in this way; rather, he arrived at what he expressed—let us say—about the animation of plants or celestial bodies through logical deductions. He compared human life—as it manifests in various psychological phenomena—with the life of plants or a celestial body, and said: “Well, we see that a plant—in this or that respect—exhibits something that can only be explained by assuming something similar to the soul in humans.” This method is called “reasoning by analogy.” So this was pure speculation; but it was something very ingenious, even if, from a theosophical point of view, we must regard it as an ingenious play with all sorts of concepts. If today, once again, certain people with little knowledge and a great deal of complacency draw on Fechner and wish to construct a worldview in his spirit, then one must say that while one can admire Fechner as an ingenious person, but his followers cannot be admired in the same sense; rather, these followers have a duty first to learn—and to learn, in the spiritual realm, what theosophy has to offer them—before they should consider themselves qualified to make any determinations regarding, for example, the animation of plants or the celestial bodies.

[ 7 ] Well, that Gustav Theodor Fechner got into a dispute with Schleiden—the botanist Schleiden—when Schleiden spoke out sharply against everything that was still widely believed in the first half of the nineteenth century, not only among laypeople but also within the scientific community itself, regarding the influence of various celestial bodies on conditions on Earth. One must not assume that the situation regarding such matters has always been the same as it is today. Another great natural scientist from the first half of the nineteenth century, Burdach, collected in detail those cases in which it becomes evident how the course of illnesses differs during the waxing moon and differs during the waning moon. This was carefully documented and played a significant role in highly reputable books from the first half of the nineteenth century. And others, too, took seriously not only the claim—which can still be read today in every popular book dealing with these subjects— but not only was the claim taken seriously—that the moon is the cause of what are called the tides—but there was also much discussion of the moon’s influence on the weather, on certain phenomena in general, let’s say, including plant growth and the like. So, as I said, these things were taken very seriously, even scientifically, well into the mid-nineteenth century.

[ 8 ] But people like Schleiden—whom, as you have seen, we must regard as one of the most significant figures of the nineteenth century—were so deeply influenced by the materialistic mindset of their time that they could not bring themselves to entertain the idea that any influence, however subtle, such as that of the moon, could have an effect on the Earth. Schleiden, one might say, took a scathing swipe at all the claims that the Moon had an influence on this or that condition on Earth. The only influence he accepted was that of the Moon on the tides. And if you read such things today that refer to the Moon, you will see that much of what is described consists of speculations about the Moon’s surface. For a time, it was even boasted in schools that humans knew the surface of the Moon better than that of Africa. That is not the case, and it was mere boasting. But regarding everything that should actually interest people—the question: How does a celestial body like the Moon relate to life on our Earth?—conventional science remains completely silent on the matter.

[ 9 ] And that is precisely what one needs, so to speak, as a human being—what one must know something about.

[ 10 ] Schleiden said: Well, if something is out of order in a household—if, for example, the dishes in the kitchen have been left in disarray—people say, “The cat did it.” It’s the same in science. If something happening on Earth cannot be explained, people say, “The moon is to blame.” So Schleiden declared the moon to be the “cat” of science, and Fechner was extremely angered by this and wrote a truly extraordinary scholarly treatise—one that, to this day, is still considered a model of scholarly work—in which he sought to prove that, in fact, when one considers the compilation of observations that have been made, the Moon does indeed have a considerable influence on our weather conditions. Fechner carefully examined the observations and analyzed them over the course of decades. This revealed quite remarkable results for many places on Earth. Fechner did indeed find that during the days corresponding to the waxing moon—that is, in the days leading up to the full moon—there are far more rainy days on Earth and a far greater amount of rainfall than during the days corresponding to the waning moon—that is, leading up to the new moon—and that, in turn, more rain falls on days when the moon is close to Earth than on days when it is far from Earth. He compiled and examined this data very carefully and saw that it could not be due to chance. He compiled the results, which in turn can indicate how one might account for the random factors that might affect the data compiled over the fourteen days during which the moon is waxing and the fourteen days during which the moon is waning, in order to verify the amount of rainfall. Thus, he found that the number of rainy days during the fourteen days of the waxing moon is to that of the waning moon as 107 to 100.

[ 11 ] Cross-check—all even days from one half, all odd days from the other—revealed a completely different ratio. Now, Gustav Theodor Fechner himself said: “Well, a major influence of the moon—which would be, so to speak, crude—is not evident, but the ratio of rainy days during the waxing moon to those during the waning moon—107 to 100—is, after all, a numerical ratio that—if it holds true for Strasbourg, Paris, and a large number of other locations over a period of twenty to forty years—is at least something that can be taken into account.

[ 12 ] Here, Gustav Theodor Fechner did something that, strictly speaking, occurs only very sporadically, but which for him corresponds to a theosophical principle that states: Practice provides the best evidence for what can be gleaned from Spiritual Science. We draw evidence from practical life for what Spiritual Science has to say. In this particular case, Fechner wanted to draw upon practical life. He presented it in a humorous way. He said: Well, the skeptic will not be convinced by this calculation—this calculation that yields a ratio of 107 to 100. The skeptic will say: That’s a kind of statistic, and you can prove anything with statistics. But here’s a suggestion from me [Gustav Theodor Fechner]: How about letting our wives settle this question? Schleiden and I—even though we’re locked in a scientific dispute—would certainly get along if we built a house and lived together. Our wives could then—as women used to do—obtain the water they need for washing by collecting the rainwater that flows from the roof. My wife, of course, since she’s on her husband’s side, would take the fourteen days when the moon is waxing; Professor Schleiden’s wife would naturally take the other fourteen days. That way, we’d get along quite well. My wife would get one more pitcher of water every twenty-eight days than Professor Schleiden’s wife.

[ 13 ] Gustav Theodor Fechner also tried to approach other matters in a truly unbiased manner. He found that while not everything in popular belief can be justified, some things certainly can. Of course, certain notions must be ruled out—notions that were also accepted in folk beliefs, such as the idea that a razor becomes duller during the waxing moon than during the waning moon, which is why even today, barbershops still use a moon as their emblem. But, as I said, these are things that, upon closer examination, prove just as unfounded as that old claim that hair cut during the waning moon will not grow back; that would be very convenient—one would only need to get a shave once during the waning moon and would never have to get another shave again. But—unfortunately—that is not the case. Practical experience, then, does not support this rule, which you can find frequently in the works of ancient writers. Yet Fechner was able to identify some instances where a slight influence of the moon did indeed manifest in cases of illness. This is precisely a chapter where science, as I said, has been led onto thin ice. For Gustav Theodor Fechner’s extraordinarily meticulous treatise has not succeeded in bringing us any closer, through the sciences, to answering the question of whether the moon has an influence on human diseases on Earth. Only with regard to the tides, as already mentioned, is the moon considered the actual cause. Well, this is something I mentioned in my introduction to show you how necessary it is—especially in such areas where, as I said, science has been led onto thin ice—that it be guided onto the right path by what we call Spiritual Science. Such matters can really only be addressed through Spiritual Science research, through clairvoyant consciousness, which is also capable of investigating phenomena that extend beyond the realm of physical research. There is absolutely no other way to deal with such phenomena. Curiously enough, superstition is certainly very, very closely intertwined with what is legitimate in this very field—especially when one considers the moon’s influence on weather conditions or its other effects. And indeed, if one goes back a little further, popular belief is everywhere grounded in a certain clairvoyant insight. But today’s popular belief has also suffered greatly from the spread of materialistic consciousness; and so, in popular belief as well, much has simply been grossly distorted and is, as it is presented today, taken merely in a superficial way.

[ 14 ] Isn’t it true that, for example, when things are presented in such a way that one says: “The moon parts the clouds when it is full, so that the night is beautiful during a full moon”—that is a simplistic judgment. When there are clouds in the sky, of course you can’t see the full moon. If you do see it, then it must have parted the clouds—or so people think.

[ 15 ] Now, if the Spiritual Science is to gain any influence, it will be necessary for it to make significant corrections precisely in this area of external science—where external science has preserved its worst superstition, namely the superstition that has survived specifically from certain judgments about the influence of the celestial bodies on our Earth; external science has preserved this very superstition. Namely, the matter of the tides, which can be read today in every popular textbook on astronomical geography, is precisely the one that is incorrect. The only way to achieve anything here is by (exposing the superstition?) ...

[ 16 ] I will completely set aside the fact that, for example, high and low tides are known to occur twice in the course of twenty-four hours, while the Moon—which is supposed to be responsible for this with its full phase—reaches its highest point only once during those twenty-four hours. But one must take all this into account—for example, that in various locations around the world, high tide occurs two to two and a half hours later than science claims it should. This was already emphasized by Mayer, the great nineteenth-century naturalist—who, incidentally, because he was one of the most prominent figures of his time, was locked up in an insane asylum by his contemporaries. He emphasized that during his extensive travels he was able to observe that high tide at sea occurs two to two and a half hours later than it should if the Moon’s position at the meridian were the cause. Science simply says: The tide was just delayed. Well, that’s very much in line with how conclusions are drawn today. Anyone who engages thoughtfully with such subjects will be able to observe this for themselves. And when one sees that in wells, for example, the high tide doesn’t occur at all when the moon is high, but precisely when low tide sets in on the open sea, then people simply say: “The high tide has been delayed so much that it doesn’t arrive until low tide sets in on the sea.” You can read about this in popular books—just as you can read about the countless claims made in today’s most widespread worldviews, dictated with great pathos, which people believe in as if they were dogmas, even though they rest on the weakest possible scientific foundation. That is precisely what is so disheartening—that worldviews based on so-called certain scientific findings can gain traction in the broadest circles today. Anyone who knows how things really stand will realize the futility of opposing such worldviews; but they also know that all of this is built on sand, that science itself, in its attempt to construct worldviews, is bound to be led astray before long.

[ 17 ] The question now is: How can we approach these matters from a Spiritual Science perspective so that we may, little by little, so to speak, enter into the Spiritual Science contemplation of these things, into the Spiritual Science illumination of external circumstances? Here I must again cite something that Goethe—truly a spirit who, among modern thinkers and researchers, stands closest to what we call theosophy—attempted in relation to similar fields, just as others have made attempts regarding the ebb and flow of the tides. Namely, when I had been working intensively in Weimar—after having spent years studying Goethe’s scientific and other works, and seven years engaged in the most diverse preparatory work that Goethe had undertaken—I found countless tables of incredible precision. For today’s Goethe scholars, especially those who write Goethe biographies—well, they truly are among the most dreadful people today; we’ve just witnessed an Englishman producing the latest Goethe biography, which is being hailed throughout the entire German-speaking world as something extraordinarily lofty—a book that merely shows us how, when such an inferior mind describes Goethe, it turns him into an inferior mind as well; No one can rise above their own limitations, and it is only too understandable that Goethe, too, becomes a reflection of that when such a person takes aim at him—well, people naturally have no mental image of just how precisely and diligently Goethe worked precisely where it mattered to him to establish scientifically significant facts. There are endless series of tables, rendered in drawings, in which Goethe attempts to determine the atmospheric pressure for a wide variety of locations across Europe. For he wanted to show that the barometer reading does not depend on random air currents and external influences from the moon and the stars, but rather that the barometer reading exhibits a regular pattern, such that, across the entire Earth, the air becomes, so to speak, sometimes thinner and sometimes denser. And Goethe sought to demonstrate this through barometric readings by tracking the rises and falls in tabular form.

[ 18 ] What was his ulterior motive? He had the following ulterior motive: He wanted to show that the Earth is not this lifeless entity, as another perspective presents it to us; [he wanted to show] that it is not merely the physical, sensory entity that physical geography would have us believe, but that the physical Earth is the physical body of a being, just as the physical human body belongs to an etheric body. And just as the etheric or Life-Body of the human being brings about breathing, so Goethe wanted to show that the Earth’s breathing consists in the rarefaction and condensation of the air, which is brought about by the Earth’s etheric body. Goethe sought to prove, through these tables of his—which he had compiled with immense diligence—that he had mobilized all his friends scattered here and there across the most diverse parts of Europe to send him the data for the tables, so that he could formulate the law of the Earth’s respiration: When the Earth exhales, the layer of air becomes thinner, and when it inhales, the layer of air becomes denser.

[ 19 ] Thus, in Goethe’s work, we have, so to speak, traced the ebb and flow of the atmosphere back to the living conditions of our Earth—to that which in our Earth corresponds to human inhalation and exhalation. In a similar way, other people have also attributed the ebb and flow—the rising and falling of the water—to the Earth’s inner life forces, and truly: these were not bad people. If you ever, my dear Theosophical friends, read that beautiful book /gap in the text/, you will see that Leonardo delved into the most diverse fields of human knowledge, and that for him, too, the regular rising and falling of the sea corresponded to an inner life process of the Earth. And we owe it to the great, epoch-making researcher Kepler for the statement that the Earth can be compared to a great whale that breathes in and out, and that this is manifested in the ebb and flow of the water.

[ 20 ] These are all things that must be taken into account. Of course, people everywhere today try to make you believe—as if Kepler—who is, after all, fully recognized for his achievements, which cannot be swept under the rug—as if he had never said such things and [as if he] would agree, were he alive today, with all the ridiculous theories that modern monism puts out into the world. This monism invokes Kepler but conceals what has just been mentioned, for example—that, according to his statement, the Earth is an internally animate being.

[ 21 ] With statements such as these, we are already approaching what Spiritual Science or theosophy has to say about circumstances such as those at the heart of our topic today. One can only understand such circumstances by considering them in relation to the whole of human life. For the human being belongs to the Earth just as the finger belongs to the entire human organism. I have often said: The finger is actually wiser than the human being; for it does not imagine—as the human being so often does in relation to the entire Earth organism—that it can lead an independent life apart from the living organism. It is a finger only because it is part of the whole organism. If you cut it off, it is no longer a finger; then it perishes, it decays. Only human beings imagine that they can be something without the Earth’s organism, even though they belong to the Earth’s organism just as the finger belongs to the human organism.

[ 22 ] Of course, humans are led to hold this view because they can walk around, and they interpret this outward appearance as though they truly did not belong to the earth. The finger, too, would probably consider itself an independent being if it could move about freely, if it were not attached to the body. Humans need only consider for a moment what would happen to them if they were grabbed by the scruff of the neck and carried several miles away from the earth; they would be just as unable to live as a finger that had been severed from its body. This severing can also occur in ways other than by a knife. Human beings must certainly be regarded as belonging to the Earth. It is a mistaken view to consider individual beings in isolation. The Earth and human beings belong together. Only then can one arrive at a reasonable understanding when considering the Earth in connection with human beings.

[ 23 ] As you know, the human being consists first and foremost of the physical body, the etheric or Life-Body, the astral body, and everything that the “I” brings about within the human being. If we first consider these first three members—the physical body, the etheric or Life-Body, and the astral body—and how they relate to the “I,” we must say: In the human being’s waking state, it becomes evident to us that these four members—the physical body, the etheric or Life-Body, the astral body, and the “I”—are interwoven. In the waking state, the human being is a being composed of these four members. As for the sleeping state—which, after all, will occur once within a twenty-four-hour period for a healthy person—the situation is such that the physical body and the etheric body remain in bed, while the astral body and the “I” are carried away into the spiritual world.

[ 24 ] Let us first consider this awakening human being as we see him today. We can understand him in his present significance and nature only if we tell ourselves: the physical body, the etheric or Life-Body, and the astral body are the vehicles of the “I.” The “I” lives within them. Far into the future, the “I” will work more and more on these vehicles of its own, beginning with the astral body. It will transform it, and this will become the Spirit-Self, or Manas. But the “I” must work self-consciously on the astral body if the Spirit-Self is to arise. Therefore, with regard to this conscious work, we are still only at the beginning for ordinary humanity. But the “I” must also work consciously on the etheric body or Life-Body. As the “I” transforms the etheric or Life-Body, it will have work to do far into the future; that which is spiritualized in the etheric or Life-Body—which is a transformation of the etheric body by the “I”—is the Buddhi or the Life-Spirit. That which will be spiritualized from the physical body through the conscious work of the “I”—that is the Spirit-Man or Atma. Thus we can say: Human beings present themselves to us as physical body, etheric body, astral body, and Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man; but the last three members are transformations of the first three brought about by the “I.”

[ 25 ] There we have placed before us the human beings of the past and the human beings of the future. But a certain transformation has already taken place in the lower members of the human being on our Earth—though not arbitrarily by the “I.” The “I” has already been working on the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. That which the “I” will consciously transform in the astral body will become its Manas, or Spirit-Self. That which the ego made into its instrument from the astral body in ancient times, without working consciously, is the feeling soul. We call the envelope of the feeling soul—what remains of the old astral body—the feeling body, and that which the ego has unconsciously transformed, the feeling soul. Now the “I” has also worked upon the etheric or Life-Body. What the “I” has unconsciously worked upon in it—the substances it has drawn out of the etheric body—we call the intellectual or emotional soul. And that which the “I” has worked out of the physical body and made into its instrument, we call the conscious soul. Thus, between what was in the past and what the human being will be in the future stand the actual soul members of the human being: in the very center of the sensory body, the corresponding soul member, the sensory soul; in the etheric or Life-Body, the corresponding soul member, the intellectual or emotional soul; and within the physical body, the corresponding soul element, the consciousness soul.

[ 26 ] When a human being stands before us today with his or her “I” in the waking state, these three soul members live within their corresponding bodies. These three bodies are permeated by the soul members; these three are also dependent on a certain environment. A person is threefold dependent on their environment during the waking state. What does it actually mean, when we consider waking life in relation to the world, to be “awake”? It means that what has left the physical and etheric bodies during the night is called back into them by the rising of the sun. And when the sun sets again, what had been drawn into the physical and etheric bodies by the rising of the sun—the astral body and the “I”—is driven out of them once more.

[ 27 ] Human development consists in becoming independent of external circumstances. Out in the countryside, sleeping and waking are still somewhat governed by the setting and rising of the sun. Human beings are called to become independent of the external natural world. Through urban life, people have already become highly independent of the direct experience of the sun and the night. But within themselves, people retain the same rhythm; so that it is really the case with them, as it were, like a clock that is three hours fast. It completes a full cycle in twelve hours, just like a correctly set clock. It takes as long as usual, but always displays the wrong time. Internally, it runs according to solar time, but it no longer aligns with external conditions. It is necessary for human beings to detach themselves from external conditions and maintain the rhythm only internally. So, outwardly, the sun rises and sets; yet human beings do not sleep and wake in accordance with the sun’s rising and setting; rather, they maintain the rhythm internally. Even if a person can manage to stay awake at night and sleep during the day, day and night still alternate within them. Whereas in earlier times a person’s inner life coincided externally with day and night, now they are indeed torn apart externally, yet the person has retained the rhythm internally. Thus, a person’s waking during the day—the coexistence of the soul with the outer body—signifies the person’s connection to the sun. Therefore, it is the sun that governs this coexistence of the soul with the outer body. The outer physical body is governed in relation to the soul by the relationship of the Earth to the sun.

[ 28 ] This is regulated in three ways. First, we have the sensory body, and within it, the sensory soul. On what do the sensory body and the sensory soul depend with regard to the influence of the sun? The sensory body and the sensory soul depend, with regard to the influence of the sun, on the place on Earth where [the human being] lives; depending on this, the sun’s rays strike at different angles. Thus, the sensory body and the sensory soul stand in a different relationship to the physical body, depending on where the human being lives. The place on Earth where a person lives determines, first and foremost, what we call the influence of the sun on a person’s sensory body and—indirectly—on their sensory soul. We encounter this first of the sun’s influences in what we call a sense of home. This sense of home is the person’s deep connection to the land on which they live. And there are, after all, well-known cases where we can say that people, no matter how down-to-earth they are, no matter how deeply rooted they are in the place where they live, become homesick when they are transplanted to another place—and that then the mere thought that they might return restores their health. Now, human beings are called upon to outgrow such dependence; but it is precisely in the feeling soul and the feeling body, in the sense of home, that we see this first influence of the sun, which expresses itself in the fact that a person is born in a specific place. They are born in a specific place, and certain instincts that manifest in them depend on this—instincts that arise where the “I” has not yet consciously worked on the feeling soul. We can demonstrate this by looking around us a little.

[ 29 ] It is interesting to note—if we single out just two examples—that these two activities took place only in very specific regions of the world. These are ironworking and the practice of obtaining food from animals, known as milking. If we go further back in time, we find these practices only in Asia and Europe. Among the world’s populations that we call indigenous peoples, there was originally no evidence of milking cows or ironworking. The indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Native Americans, for example, did not engage in ironworking or milking animals. These practices were only brought to the Americas by the invading Europeans. Just as animals were not milked there, iron was not worked there either. On the other hand, we see that these practices were widespread throughout Siberia, but they did not spread across the Bering Strait.

[ 30 ] Here we see that, in the times we are discussing, the focus is on the intensive engagement with the environment. This is linked to the sensory soul; it is entirely dependent on the place on Earth where one lives. Thus, the feeling soul lives and dwells in the feeling body, and the influence of the Sun manifests itself through the fact that a person lives in a specific place on Earth.

[ 31 ] Let us now try to determine the influence of the Sun in relation to the etheric or Life-Body and the intellectual soul dwelling within it. This influence depends on the seasons and on the Earth’s position relative to the Sun. The seasons determine how a person, as the intellectual soul within their etheric body—which serves as the instrument for the intellectual soul—feels. This, in turn, manifests through external phenomena.

[ 32 ] Take a look at the peoples of the North Pole. Unless a certain culture of intellect and emotion penetrates their lives—and when it does, they have great difficulty assimilating it—they fall into apathy due to the alternation of winter and summer as it occurs around the North Pole. The same is true in tropical regions with their long summers. There, too, people fall into apathy. But the culture that is bound to the intellectual soul can take root in the temperate zones, which have their regular alternation of summer and winter. This is because the unique relationship between the intellectual or emotional soul and the etheric body can only come about when a person truly experiences what might be called all that longing for spring, as it manifests in the temperate zone; all that joy that is present in summer; all that melancholy that sets in during autumn; and everything that can be experienced in winter. This rhythm is necessary so that the etheric body can flourish in such a way that the intellectual or emotional soul can dwell within it properly.

[ 33 ] And a third influence of the sun is that of night and day, or as the human being repeatedly experiences it in his conscious soul. If a person does not sleep properly—that is, does not allow the astral body and the “I” to alternate between dwelling within the physical and etheric bodies and being outside of them, so that what has been caused to the physical body by the astral body can be repaired—then his or her life cannot flourish properly. In order for a person to develop precisely the state of the “I” that is necessary today, they must be awake for a certain number of hours—dictated by the conditions of the sun—and sleep for the corresponding number of hours. The development of the “I” in the physical body as the consciousness soul is bound to those conditions in the sun’s course that we encounter in the alternation of day and night.

[ 34 ] This is how we have expressed the Earth’s relationship to the Sun within the human being. The astral body—or the body of sensation—with the soul of sensation dwelling within it, has a relationship to the place on Earth where we live. We become more and more independent of the place where we are simply by becoming stronger and stronger inwardly and growing beyond the earthbound nature of our homeland. By making the entire Earth our home, we develop a sense of belonging to the [home] of the entire Earth; but we are then dependent on the entire Earth, and we will have to accept this earthly locality as appropriate. The changing of the seasons corresponds to what we experience within the etheric body. The changing of the times of day corresponds to what we experience as the alternation of waking and sleeping.

[ 35 ] We have thus described the relationship of the human being to the Sun and the Earth. For when the human being, with his inner being—with which he is outside the physical and etheric bodies at night—and when he is inside the physical and etheric bodies with his inner being, so that the human being stands before us as the whole human being, so to speak, by day—or better yet: in the waking state—[then] the human being is, throughout his or her entire life, a result of this threefold relationship of the Earth to the Sun. In the waking state, the relationship of the Earth to the Sun is repeated.

[ 36 ] And now let us consider that human being who is the true inner human being, who, in the state of sleep, exists outside the physical and etheric bodies. Of course, no external science can observe this person; only the clairvoyant gaze can do so; for external science, of course, has only the physical body and the etheric body before it during sleep; since it denies the etheric body, only the physical body remains for it, and that is the same whether awake or asleep. External science does not concern itself with that which emerges at night. This is precisely what, after the human being has been exposed to the influence of the sun during the day—in fact, whenever he is within his physical and etheric bodies—and has repeated the sun’s influence within himself, stands in exactly the same relationship to the moon. Just as human daily life repeats the relationship of the Sun to the Earth in threefold ways, so does human night life—namely, that which emerges from the physical and etheric bodies upon falling asleep—repeat the lunar rhythm, the relationship of the Moon to the Earth. And this is true for every human being. We simply have to consider how this works. I have described in a somewhat dry manner how human beings repeat the influence of the sun in threefold ways in their daily lives, so that I may now show you how, when a person sleeps, the influence of the moon manifests itself in their very inner being. The facts are such that no external evidence for this can be found [...]. Admittedly, when one observes human life, one will find individual clues pointing to this, but they are merely clues, because one has no means other than Spiritual Science to make proper use of them.

[ 37 ] You see, you’ve surely heard of those true, genuine poets, for example, who at certain times must remain silent in their writing, who are unable to produce anything then; the others, the less significant ones, can write poetry at any time, can’t they? But those who truly pour out their soul when they write poetry must fall silent at certain times, whereas at other times—and this is true in every field of art—their inner being is truly like a spring that brings forth artistic intuitions, intentions, and so on. Where does this come from? Well, this is not observed in external science. Where does this come from? It comes from the fact that a regular rhythm does indeed take place in that which is outside the physical body and the etheric body at night, because a regular rhythm takes place in the astral body and the “I.” If one examines this latter rhythm, it appears to run from fourteen days to fourteen days, with an ascending and a descending phase; so it is that in this inner being of the human being, which is outside the physical and etheric bodies at night, it happens that, for a certain period of time, one experiences precisely what stimulates the imagination, gives rise to thoughts, and is productive; and that during the other fourteen days, that which stimulates the imagination, gives rise to thoughts, and inspires the human being to be productive remains dormant. In particular, the imagination becomes less and less productive, and there are dead spots where nothing at all wants to emerge from within. In fact, a certain regular rhythm sets in within the human being. There are certain times when the inner being allows thoughts to gush forth. At other times, these thoughts can, of course, be written down; but a person is truly productive only at certain times. This has nothing to do with their external life, but rather with the influences they experience specifically during sleep. There are dead spots when they are not productive inwardly, and these dead spots—as well as, of course, the peak periods—are always spaced approximately four weeks apart. They correspond to the influence of the moon—roughly—in such a way that a person is most productive during the full moon, and the dead point occurs at the new moon. But this rhythm repeats itself within a person, so that it is not that the moon still exerts this influence today, but rather that we can say: Once upon a time, in the distant past, a person was such that during sleep, through the forces emanating from what we now call the full moon, they were stimulated to inner productivity, which gave rise to their thoughts, their insights—that which connects human beings with the spiritual world—and that when what we now call the new moon arrived, they reached a dead point where the outer spiritual world closed off from them. Today, this is no longer the case—this inner life no longer coincides with the phases of the moon. Human beings have freed themselves from this. They have retained the rhythm, however. A rhythm corresponding to the phases of the moon is revealed in human inner life—not only in great poets and artists, but in every human being. In every human being, there is an ascending and a descending phase of life that corresponds exactly to the lunar rhythm—though its highest and lowest points do not coincide externally with those of the moon. While human beings, when they are immersed in their inner life within the physical body and the etheric or Life-Body, are, so to speak, children of the sun’s influence, the very core of their being, with its inner life, is under the influence of the moon—not directly, but in such a way that it repeats the moon’s rhythm in an inner process.

[ 38 ] This is particularly interesting when we look at the production of Spiritual Science itself. When a person develops to the point where they can consciously observe how their inner self has separated from the outer world—when the inner self has become independent, when clairvoyance has emerged while fully conscious, when they see not through their physical eyes but through the higher organs of perception— then they can consciously observe how the process unfolds, and it becomes apparent that one can perceive a period of fourteen days during which inspirations permeate the spiritual plan, during which everything is laid bare before the clairvoyant consciousness; a time that is, so to speak, a golden age of clairvoyance sets in, and then, in turn, a period follows in which the images fade. And these periods all follow the rhythm of the lunar cycle. It is as if one were experiencing an inner full-moon night—from an external perspective, one might call it night, even though it is illuminated from within. When one beholds a brightly lit world through clairvoyance, one experiences a new-moon night fourteen days later, during which the images fade. This alternates like the lunar cycle. Where we are able to observe, through fully conscious clairvoyance, how this inner being of the human being has a rhythm, there it becomes most evident that the human being does indeed have an inner rhythm. Just as the human being’s outer life corresponds to the solar rhythm, so does the inner life correspond to the lunar rhythm. Where does this come from?

[ 39 ] Well, my dear Theosophical friends, you all know from what is known as the Akashic Records that the Earth was once embodied as the Moon, that today’s Moon was, so to speak, cast out from our Earth and has retained conditions that once existed there. Ancient conditions from times when our present-day “I”—which has since developed—had no influence yet on our spiritual conditions, on our astral body, and so on, are preserved there for us. On the other hand, future conditions on Earth are already beginning to emerge. Just as we had a period during the ancient Lunar Age when the “I” had no influence on our spiritual conditions, and just as we will develop the astral body into the Spirit-Self or Manas during the Jupiter Age, so has the Earth, as it were, preserved the ancient era within the Moon. The Moon is nothing other than a piece of the Earth. It has preserved it in one piece in such a way that it appears as a piece of the Earth in its orbit. As it revolves around the Earth, it completes one rotation on its own axis; we always see the same side of it because it is a piece of the Earth.

[ 40 ] And, isn’t it true that if you imagine, instead of the Moon, its entire surface, it would always present its exterior outward (and its interior inward)? And the Moon is nothing other than a piece of Earth that presents its exterior outward and its interior inward. The Moon has preserved in a single piece that which the Earth once was. What the human being once was is therefore preserved in his inner life during sleep, while those conditions that can exist only through the Earth reveal themselves to us when we are awake. So that we can say: Our inner being stands in such a relationship to itself, to the whole human being, as the Moon does to the Earth. Our inner being repeats the lunar rhythm. It is an extraordinarily important fact that with our outer being we repeat the solar rhythm in relation to the Earth, and with our inner being we repeat the lunar rhythm.

[ 41 ] This inner being of ours, however, is at the same time something that passes from incarnation to incarnation, from embodiment to embodiment. Therefore, only the individual embodiment is directly subject to the influence of the Sun, while the inner life, which passes from incarnation to incarnation, is subject to the influence of the Moon. If only the Sun were at work, human life would unfold so rapidly that what would otherwise take many incarnations to experience would be experienced in a single incarnation. But we would also not experience more than what we can experience in a single incarnation. The influence of the Moon enables us to appear anew in every incarnation. Indeed, it is the case that what lies between birth and death is subject to the influence of the Sun, and what lies beyond that—where the spiritual is active—is subject to the influence of the Moon.

[ 42 ] This is truly one of the points where modern science mocks itself without even realizing it. Even today, when people still speak of conditions relating to the time before birth, they actually calculate in lunar months. They count ten lunar months. The lunar cycle repeats itself ten times during human embryonic development, from conception to birth. Since—because each month actually corresponds to a very specific stage of the embryo’s development, and the embryo [gap in the transcript]—one must calculate in lunar months. The human embryo lives for ten lunar months before it is born. Even conventional science calculates using these ratios, thereby mocking itself without realizing it. The conditions of the human being—which do not pertain to life between birth and death but lie immediately beyond it—all relate to the influence of the moon; it is just that it is not the present-day moon that is directly at work here, but the rhythm is preserved. Enormous perspectives open up for those who wish to explore these ideas further. What lies beyond outward life points back to the rhythm preserved by the ancient Moon, which will repeat itself on a higher level in the rhythm of Jupiter. Everything that lies behind external life points back to the influence of the Moon. No wonder that conventional science knows nothing of the Moon’s influence and is mistaken even where it has retained some awareness of such an influence. The Earth itself was once in such a rhythm, which is evident today in the twenty-eight-day lunar cycle. Therefore, it is not [surprising] that the Earth has preserved something in its life that manifests itself in precisely the same way as the lunar rhythm.

[ 43 ] So it is not today’s Moon that causes the tides, but rather the inner life of the Earth itself that manifests here—that inner life which, in turn, has remained from the earlier lunar era. This has been preserved in the Earth’s own manifestations—in the ebb and flow of the tides—and, conversely, in the fact that [the Earth] orbits the Moon. No wonder the two coincide! For they both trace back to one and the same cause.

[ 44 ] The person who speaks of attributing both the lunar cycle and the phenomenon known as the tides to a common spiritual cause on Earth is correct. That is why the two phenomena run parallel; that is why they can also overlap; just as in human beings, so too do phenomena that run parallel overlap in the external world.

[ 45 ] In this sense, my dear Theosophical friends, the tide may indeed be delayed, just as, in the case of human beings, their inner rhythm—while it maintains a sense of the sequence of time—is by no means bound to external influences. In short, when we view things from a Spiritual Science perspective, everything that needs to be explained in this field becomes clear.

[ 46 ] Thus we see that when we consider what lies behind the outer appearances—that which passes through the incarnations—we must ask about that which already existed as a spiritual reality during the ancient Lunar Age. The Moon is, as it were, a symbol of what the Earth once was—the influence on human beings that was already at work before human beings became the “I” of today. When a person looks up at the Moon, they can say: You have preserved what the Earth once was. I have attained my “I” on Earth. But what makes my “I” eternal—and in which I live when I sleep, when I sink into the unseen after passing through the gate of death—is connected in its rhythm to the course of the Moon.

[ 47 ] What transcends individual life leads us to the lunar cycle. Religious texts have faithfully preserved many occult truths, yet people today understand little of these religious texts. The ancient Hebrew creed, which paved the way for Christianity, perceived what we have said in a wondrous way. Moses said: Within me lives something that is kindred to the divine spirit of the world. What creates the rhythm within me, I see above in the rhythm of the moon. That is why he calls Yahweh the moon god, who established the order of the moon before the order of the earth, so that it might be the rhythm of inner humanity. And how does Moses describe that Yahweh? Read the relevant passage; it is wonderfully beautiful and apt. It is explicitly described to us by Yahweh that no human can ever see his face; he reveals himself [to them] only from behind. Why does the Mosaic text describe Yahweh this way? It describes him this way because Yahweh, or Jehovah, is outwardly represented by the moon, which conceals its face and passes by the Earth always showing the same side, never revealing its face. The moon’s path is described here.

[ 48 ] This is one of those examples where the full depth of the biblical text reveals itself to us as a truly occult text—if only we understand it. Now we must also be clear about the fact that what was a rhythm in the human being who had not yet developed an ego—in that human being who had not yet awakened to his or her ego—and what remains as a rhythm for the subdued ego, must now come to the ego. Human beings have stepped out of the lunar rhythm. If this rhythm still occurs today, it shows that what the lunar rhythm was has remained. But human beings must step fully and consciously into the spiritual realm; that is to say, what was given in the lunar rhythm in ancient times must also be able to be given in the solar rhythm for the future. To this end, the spirit of the Sun had to unite with the Earth’s evolution.

[ 49 ] Just as the Old Testament points us back to a spirit connected with the moon, so the New Testament points us toward Christ Jesus, who will now lead the development in the other direction, who will place the [solar rhythm] within the day, within the fully developed “I.”

[ 50 ] We have already indicated that, once the “I” is fully developed, today’s clairvoyant consciousness is already evident.

[ 51 ] So, when it comes to the nocturnal aspect of our development, we understand that the influence of the Moon makes itself felt. The influence of the Moon makes itself felt in everything related, so to speak, to any state of sleep. That is what Spiritual Science has to say about the influence of the Moon. And it is not through observational work, as Gustav Theodor Fechner did, that one comes to recognize the influence of the Moon, but by investigating the matter from a spiritual-scientific perspective. Then one will see that, once one has become familiar with the lunar rhythm, one will find it reflected in various earthly phenomena; then one will see that in various earthly conditions a rhythm similar to that of the Moon takes place. The phenomena correspond with one another, although it must be said that there is no direct influence.

[ 52 ] I wanted to show that, just as human beings harmonize with the influence of the sun in their outer daily life, they harmonize with the influence of the moon on the night side; but that one must seek both for oneself, so that the rhythm on one side corresponds to the rhythm on the other; yet one does not arrive at a conclusion by simply saying that the moon causes this or that. One must observe the Moon on its own and the human being on its own. In this way, one will see that these are two distinct rhythms. The clock is also set to the solar rhythm, but it can run quite differently from solar time. Even when we get up early in the morning and go by the clock, it would never occur to us to look for the reason for getting up in the clock itself—in the fact that the clock’s hands have turned—even though getting up coincides with the clock, because both must harmonize according to deeper laws. In the same way, the moon’s cycle harmonizes with the inner life of human beings, because both point to a deeper cause.