The Rudolf Steiner Archive

III. On the Origin of the Solar System

In Part Two we attempted to delineate the characteristics of the constellations of the Zodiac on the foundation of spiritual investigations in the past development of the universe. We finally came to a point where we could show the possibility of establishing the qualities and the impacts of those constellations in a new and logically comprehensible manner. Furthermore, we indicated that we could also find by this method an understanding of the ancient traditions.

This attempt calls forth the question of whether the same method can also pave the way toward a new comprehension of the nature and the working of the planets, the Sun of our solar system, and the Moon of our Earth. We shall try to find an answer, or at least indicate the road toward solutions in this last part.

We pointed out that we are living at present in a universe which demands from humanity the development of the objective or object consciousness. We are so used to this level of consciousness that normally we do not visualize the possibility of consciousness on another plane. Everything that enters the compass of consciousness of a normally organized human being is realized as an externally existing object. In other words, anything existing can be made the object of investigation through the capacities of thinking. Even problems such as the existence of a Divine world, divine creation, and so on, can be made the object of thinking. This development could take place only because of the corresponding evolution of the universe. We endeavored to demonstrate in Part Two that the universe of the fixed stars, which we can grasp with our senses, is an “objectivation” and condensation—one is almost tempted to say an ossification—of that great story of the evolution of the world. In a similar sense—as far as we can comprehend it with our senses and our thinking—our solar system is also a kind of densified cosmic demonstration of the great stages of creation in the past. The solar system still also works on as a grand, imitating memory-organism of the initial deeds of the Divine world.

Yet there is one fundamental difference between the world of the fixed stars, chiefly represented by the constellations of the Zodiac, and the planets of our solar system. The fixed stars have more a static nature. Of course, we are fully aware of the fact that the stars of the constellations also alter their positions in the sky over long periods of time. Still, their conception as groups, according to the ancient traditions, suggests more a world of integrated beings of an exalted nature undergoing slow processes of evolution and manifestation. The planets, however, represent a dynamic element in the cosmos. They appear more like the actions of those beings manifesting themselves through the Zodiac, almost like their acting extremities.

Thus we can conceive the constellations, in the depths of cosmic space, as the gateways to those beings who dwell in the spiritual world. Entering the world of the fixed stars, we approach the realm of infinity. We are aware that modern astronomy has not yet definitely decided whether space, in a cosmic sense, is infinite or finite. Still, one glance at the distances that have been computed by astronomical science, with regard to the fixed stars, can convince us of the fact that those figures are beyond human comprehension. It is certainly possible to write the millions of light years down on paper, but no human being can imagine them. We are led here to the termination of space and time, in a human sense, and we are at the threshold of the spiritual world where mere intellectual comprehension ends.

In the planetary world, we see the emanations of that Divine world beyond space and time. We can detect in it, if we search diligently, those great stages of cosmic evolution of which we have been speaking in the past. However, we find them there as facts and results not as original intentions and impulses. This does not exclude that we will also detect in the planetary world the traces of the divine hierarchies, so to speak, indications of their sojourns in this realm of the cosmos.

Also, this world of facts and deeds of the divine hierarchies became “objectivated” and externalized in the course of the fourth stage of the evolution of the world during the Earth condition. Thus our solar system of visible planets, Sun, and Moon came into existence. This happened during the fourth round or condition of life of the Earth.

The fact that we will find ourselves confronted with the deeds of the spiritual hierarchies in the planetary world; in other words, with that which they have created and continue to create in time demands a consideration of the evolution of the solar system. This was not so much an essential necessity with regard to the delineation of the fixed-star constellations. The question of how the fixed stars became perceptible to ocular vision has not concerned us so far.

How can we imagine, on the grounds of occult investigation, the coming into existence of a solar system—especially the one in which we live?

We have learned that our solar system is a tiny particle of a greater universe, the so-called galaxy or galactic system. The Milky Way is the outer rim of the galaxy, which is more or less conceived as a gigantic flat disk or lens in modern astronomy. However we imagine the galaxy, we ought to remember that the fixed stars, which we see with the unaided eye, are members of this greater universe. Our planetary system swims in this great ocean of fellow universes.

We have pointed out earlier that we cannot accept, on the basis of spiritual science or even from clear logical thinking, the view that any cosmic existence is the result of purely mechanical causes. The galaxy exists because spiritual hierarchies manifest themselves through it and work in it. Spiritual science provides the possibility of visualizing those beings of the hierarchies who are connected with the existence of the galaxy and who create a link between the galaxy and our solar system. They are the beings of the so-called first hierarchy, the Spirits of Love, the Spirits of Harmony, and the Spirits of Will. They have the direct vision of the highest Deity and “know” the divine plans of creation. Out of their immeasurable love and obedience to the highest, the Spirits of Will establish the place and the ground plan of our solar system, its skeleton as it were. The Spirits of Harmony give it a directing force as a whole. We may think, for instance, of the movement of the whole solar universe in the direction of the constellation of the Lyre. According to modern astronomical observations, our Sun is moving within the galactic system, and it also takes all the planets of the solar universe, including the Earth, along its path. As far as one can have a certainty based on mathematical calculations, this movement is directed toward the constellation of the Lyre near Hercules. The Spirits of Love or Seraphim establish the interconnection between our solar world and the galactic universe (Fig. 1).

This initial step of creation, of the present planetary universe, we can imagine as the establishment of a focus of contraction within an expanded greater cosmos. If we are aware that any comparison is bound to fall short of the reality, we may use the following picture as a limited means of explanation. Let us imagine the existence of an expanded sphere permeated by an immensely subtle substance, something likened to a gigantic cosmic cloud of spiritual consistency. This is the galaxy. Into this kind of cloud formation was infused the impulse to condensation by those spiritual hierarchies whom we mentioned. Thereby, a drop of denser substance was formed, as raindrops are formed when cloud or fog formations are condensed. This drop, falling away from its origin, was the beginning of our solar system. We have tried to give expression to this in Fig. 2, a, b, and c below. The straight lines signify the purely spiritual sphere of which we spoke. Separating from it is the cosmic “drop” of our solar world.

Into this picture we can introduce the idea of a simultaneous tendency toward condensation of the cosmic “drop”. Then we come to the suggestions indicated in Fig. 3, I, II, and III. Again, the straight lines are supposed to indicate the lower “ceiling”, as it were, of a certain region of the spiritual world or galaxy. The tangential circles are meant to demonstrate the tendency toward emancipation and condensation.

In figure 4 we introduce more cosmic conceptions into this idea. The straight line in the previous diagrams has been transformed into a circle, indicating the border between the space world and infinite space, or better, the spiritual world.

We imagine our beginning solar world as being segregated from that spherical “ceiling”, as drops falling away from it in all directions toward the center. In our diagram we have inserted four of the infinite number of possible “drops”.

Thus we are led straight to the concept of the planetary spheres of the solar universe. These spheres (see Fig. 4) are stages of condensation that are activated by forces in the central focus of the total sphere (D in Fig. 3). About the nature of these forces we shall elaborate more later on. Against them stands, as it were, a retreating periphery. Modern astronomy, for instance, speaks of an expanding greater universe. Between these two fields of forces, periphery and center, we imagine our solar system having gradually come into existence. This polarity is a most important point, which will enable us to conceive the universe as a living being.

The planets, moving along the outer ring of the spheres, must have been born very late as foci of successive condensations. The single planetary bodies, which we observe moving along their orbits, remain in perpetual motion (circular or otherwise). Through the constant change of position on their orbits, they demonstrate “in time” the infinite possibilities of the “cosmic drops” from the periphery of the solar system toward the center, which is common to all of them.

We can ask: Why is there only one planetary body in the center of the common sphere? The answer is: The common center is the ultimate aim of the whole solar system. In a certain sense, it comes to an end there. One can imagine this point as a focus of general consumption or dissolution of the mass of the solar universe and, at the same time, as a point of rebirth after transformation. (We shall speak about this focus later on in connection with the interaction between Sun and Earth.)

This ending can be achieved only by stages, and these stages are the planets moving along their orbits. We have, as it were, a miniature demonstration of this principle in the structure of the Earth. There, too, it is not the center of the Earth that is most important for its planetary development but the surface. On this surface the interaction between heavenly and terrestrial forces can take place, and thereby the mission of our planet can be fulfilled (see Fig. 5).

The outermost sphere, which we indicated in figures 3 and 4 (A), is that of Saturn. It came into existence at the beginning of the fourth round or condition of life of Earth evolution. Yet we must imagine that this initial stage of our present solar system was of an extremely subtle consistency. Eastern esoteric teaching called it an Arupa condition. (Arupa means formless; for instance, Arupa Devachan is the higher regions of the spiritual or archetype world. Everything exists there only in Akashic or memory condition.)

We have previously pointed out that the Thrones or Spirits of Will created this sphere of Saturn. Thereby, they established the layout, together with the Cherubim and Seraphim, of the whole solar system, as it were. All the later facts and movements of the planetary world were contained in this Saturn, like a seed.

The Thrones had already established on Ancient Saturn the foundation of all later incarnations of the Earth. Their fire-will (they are sometimes called in occultism, Radiating Flames), which they had sacrificed, had become the heat substance from which all later physical corporeality descended. Therefore, the Thrones were especially qualified to initiate the universe of objective physical reality, the solar world that we behold at present with our eyes.

The fact that the Spirits of Will are so closely connected with the sphere and the planet Saturn is expressed even in external properties of this celestial body. In Part Two, we have pointed out that the present planet Saturn with regard to its rings is an imitation of the particular character of the Ancient Saturn planet. Also, the sphere of present Saturn, which is enclosed in its orbit, resembles Ancient Saturn. They have the same size or volume, according to the discoveries of occult investigation.

This sphere of present Saturn became the field of action of the Thrones. Therefore, we find that the impact of this cosmic realm, for instance, on the human being when preparing for an earthly incarnation before birth, is of a nature akin to the activity of the Thrones since the most ancient cycles of evolution. Later on, after the visible planet had appeared, it began to imitate, so to speak, those activities.

Out of the innate qualities of the sphere and planet of present Saturn, these forces act as guarantors of the will of the divine Father world. The spiritual beings, who are connected with it, have assisted and witnessed all evolution since the first beginnings. On account of being the oldest, who have taken part in everything, they take care in the solar world that the original intentions of the Gods are never deviated from or forgotten or deviated from. Thus, this planet is, in the highest sense, the memory of the whole solar organism and the physiological foundation of memory and conscience within the human being.

This is also the reason why Saturn is connected very deeply with the manifestations and the laws of destiny (karma) and reincarnation. Saturn holds, as it were, the threads of evolution leading from the past to the present. In its rhythms and periods of revolution are contained deep secrets of time, of transposition of time, in other words, of the reflection of greater time rhythms in smaller cycles. For instance, during the embryonic development of a human being, certain forces are working upon the organization and create a type of replica of the essential memory pictures of past incarnations. The human body is thus formed, with regard to its more subtle functions and particularities, as a perfect image of his or her individual past. This fact has been established by the researches of modern spiritual cosmology. The forces and beings who establish this connection during gestation are especially connected with Saturn’s rhythms and positions in the sky.

The cosmic memory of Saturn doesn’t only work in the existence of the individual human being. These forces also maintain and safeguard the Will of God in the totality of cosmic evolution. Over and again they bring home to the whole of humanity, for instance, the debts and mistakes of the past, the deviations of humanity from the requirements of its evolution. They constantly call humanity back to its task of redeeming the past and thereby advancing toward the future. Thus Saturn is working in history; right down to the actual mathematical facts of its movement, one can prove its working as a ‘conscience of history’. Nothing is forgotten, everything comes back demanding redemption and evolution.

Saturn has sometimes been called an evil planet. It was supposed to be responsible for tearing away the foundations of human physical existence, their happiness, etc. In ancient mythology one spoke of Cronos, or Saturn, devouring his own children. On medieval astrological representations, Saturn sometimes appears as the Reaper of Death. These are misleading conceptions if they are only nurtured in a sphere of narrowness of thinking. The spiritual reality behind it is the fact that these Saturn forces, bearing in their being the great cosmic vision of evolution, must rebuke any attempt to deviate, for instance, from our own greater being, which is not confined to one existence between birth and death. Punishment is not meted out in the sense of revenge, but as a corrective and an opportunity for compensation. Termination of existence—death in a human sense—comes only as a breathing pause and for a re-establishment of our correlation to the greater cosmic aims.

The Spirits of Will created the sphere of Saturn as their field of activity, and they laid, thereby, the foundation for the movements of all the planets in our solar system. Thus they initiated the tendency toward ever greater densification, right down to mineral matter. Saturn is therefore also working in the depths of the Earth. The mineral body of the Earth—the rocks etc.—are connected with this planet; but it also helps, for instance, to create the hardest part of the human body during gestation, the skeleton. This skeleton, itself, is like an abbreviated biography of cosmic evolution translated into mineral appearance (see Part Two). Here we can see the reason why we sometimes find Saturn represented in the Middle Ages and earlier as the skeleton figure, an imagination that could no longer be comprehended by a later humanity.

The experiences that the human soul has after death in the sphere of Saturn are most important and decisive. Spiritual investigation reveals that we sojourn, after passing away from the Earth, in the various spheres of the planets, starting in the Moon sphere. We prepare there to rise gradually to ever higher regions of the spiritual cosmos. When we have advanced so far that we can enter the realm of Saturn, we have reached the outermost border of our solar world. Everything around us is then of pure spiritual nature and in the sphere of Saturn we encounter the archetypes, the thought-beings which stand behind the soul motions which live in earthly humanity. The passions, emotions, and feelings which activate and ensoul us on the Earth appear then in their true nature. We are surrounded there by the past, by historical events which have taken place. We do not perceive the happenings as they appear externally; rather, we see the spiritual forces that have brought about clashes between nations, etc. They are then living ideas, living impulses, etc., to us. Thus we are taken to the gate where we realize psychic being, spiritual being at work behind all earthly existence.

We can comprehend these facts if we remember that Saturn is indeed the great gateway, the threshold from the universe of physical appearances to the world of spiritual permanence, where space and time lose their significance. In this sphere and beyond it, our soul can then find the kernel of its own eternal being and gather new strength and inspiration for another Earth existence. Thus the sphere of Saturn is also for us the portal through which we will again enter space and time and descend into another incarnation.

The essence of these experiences between death and new birth are not lost for us after being born on Earth; they are only veiled. All through our earthly pilgrimage, Saturn accompanies us as an unseen brother/sister, who will always untiringly remind us, by the incidents of destiny, to seek the gnosis of the spiritual background of all existence and to go consciously across that threshold that we crossed under entirely different conditions between death and new birth. This supreme manifestation of Saturn in us is clearly indicated in the position of the visible planet Saturn around the time of incarnation. The external fact is a sign or symbol of a vast spiritual reality and is an expression of a subtle connection between the universe and us.

Jupiter

The creation of the sphere of Saturn was, at the same time, the foundation of our whole solar system, because the space that the solar world occupies in the greater universe corresponds to the sphere of Saturn. The orbits of Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury are contained in it. (This statement is liable to provoke objection, because anyone who has only an average knowledge of astronomy will point out that beyond the orbit of Saturn, the planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have been discovered. Their orbits are naturally larger than that of Saturn, meaning Saturn is contained within them. Therefore the sphere of Saturn does not seem to be the outermost boundary of our solar universe. However, those newly discovered planets are of a totally different nature and origin from the classical planets. We shall deal with this question later on.) This sphere of Saturn was created from the infinite periphery toward the center by the infusion of the power of contraction. The infinite number of “drops” (see Fig. 4) falling off the ceiling of the periphery amalgamated into one big drop of the most subtle substance, which was the beginning of our solar world.

After this layout of the planetary system had been established, increasing densification of the original consistency occurred. This took place during very long ages of cosmic evolution. We indicated earlier that the first stage was called in eastern esotericism the Arupa condition and following that was a cycle of Rupa condition, during which all that had come into existence on the Arupa or Akasha (world memory) stage was densified to thought-being. Thus the sphere B in Fig. 3 and 4 was created, and this sphere is that of the present Jupiter.

This development brought an entirely new element into the solar world. Until then the “ground plan” had been established on the level of Akasha existence. In other words, the solar universe consisted of the living memory picture of past cycles of evolution coming from outside the sphere of Saturn. The next step was to consolidate and refine, as it were, the solar house from within. The forces that enacted this stage chose the sphere of Jupiter as their field of force; and later, after the visible planet had come into existence, the original activity was imitated and carried on with a semblance of those original world deeds (Fig. 6).

The beings who associated themselves especially with the sphere of Jupiter were the Kyriotetes or Spirits of Wisdom. We have already met this hierarchy before, especially in connection with the evolution of Ancient Sun. By an act of their immeasurable virtue of sacrifice, they then endowed the human being with the ether body, the vehicle of life. All those great deeds and events of Ancient Sun lived on in the Kyriotetes. Therefore, their creation, the sphere of present Jupiter, was permeated by those pictures and deeds of the past.

The particular character of the present Jupiter is experienced by the human being upon entering that sphere after death. In order to have a clear picture of this sojourn in the spiritual world after death, we should like to very briefly recapitulate the facts. (Details can be found in Rudolf Steiner’s book Theosophy. The connection of the stages of life between death and new birth with the spheres of the planets is indicated in the lecture cycle Life Between Death and New Birth in Relationship to the Cosmic Facts, Berlin 1912/13—later published as Between Death and Rebirth.) Soon after death we enter the regions of Soul land. There we must emancipate ourselves from the attachments to the earthly world, which we created during our last life. The first four regions of Soul land are identical with the sphere of the Moon, the fifth with Mercury, the sixth with Venus, and finally in the sphere of the Sun we free ourselves from our last inclinations to the physical material world (see Fig. 7)

After this journey through the spheres of the “inferior” planets, the soul has now acquired the capacity to enter the higher realms of spiritual existence, the Spirit land (lower or Rupa Devachan of eastern esotericism). There we meet the archetypes or creative thought forms of physical existence. First we pass through the sphere of Mars, where we are confronted with the archetypes of the physical material objects. In the second region we experience the spiritual archetypes of life formations. This corresponds to the sphere of Jupiter. In the third region of Spirit land, which is identical with the Saturn, dwell the archetypes of all soul formations on the Earth. About this region and the corresponding experiences of the soul, we have already previously spoken.

In the sphere of Jupiter the soul meets the archetypes of life. These are not experienced here as they are on the Earth, where life appears to be split up and manifest in many single beings. In Jupiter it is a union of all life forces, like a vast ocean of potential life circulating, as the blood does in the human body, through all living beings. The soul finds itself confronted in this sphere with the real spiritual background of life manifestations, which originally came into the world by the great sacrifice of the Spirits of Wisdom or Kyriotetes; thus the sphere of Jupiter is the expression of this hierarchy.

We say, for instance, that we are looking as a living plant, but we perceive only the manifestation of the life of that plant at one certain moment. If we could see the life or life organism of that plant, we should be able to perceive all the stages of the existence of that plant in one instant. We should also realize these life forces as that agency which shapes the whole species again and again according to one definite pattern containing the various stages of growth in one. Ultimately, we should even see the universal pattern of life forces that stand in the background of all plant existence developing the varieties, as well as the common stages of plant life, such as root, leaf, flower, seed, etc., according to one great archetype or living idea of the plant.

We experience in the sphere of Jupiter these archetypes or living ideas working in all living creatures. We see them evolving ever higher through their manifestation in the plant kingdom, in the animal kingdom, and in the human kingdom. This evolution appears as an ever changing and reforming world of flowing streams and oceans.

This immeasurable wisdom of creative life, which knows the beginning and the end of all existing life manifestations, is the deed and heritage of the Spirits of Wisdom in the sphere of Jupiter. In its highest form it is pure divine wisdom, and in its lowest form it lives in a dormant instinctive condition. We can therefore imagine that between death and a new birth the human soul gathers up wisdom in this sphere, according to the abilities acquired in previous earthly incarnations. The wisdom acquired here is not intellectual knowledge that can only analyze, but a creative wisdom able to consider simultaneously all the stages and consequences of any creative deed, working as do the life forces of the plant.

On the journey back through the spiritual world to an earthly incarnation, the human being must again pass through the sphere of Jupiter. Now, the capacities that were acquired in previous incarnations will determine whether the soul will be able to become a moral or deficient vessel for the wisdom-inspiring impulses of Jupiter. The particular degree of these capacities is expressed by the position of the planet in the sky and its relationship to the other members of our solar system at the time of incarnation.

These Jupiter forces, which are in reality nothing but a mirror of one’s behavior and individual stage of evolution long before birth, also work in the formation of the body during the period of gestation. They especially direct their efforts toward the aim of making the humans thinking beings; thus they work in that part of the organism that is needed for thinking activity, the brain and nervous system.

Jupiter is, in a certain sense, the antidote against the one-sided activity of Saturn. As we described earlier, Saturn works in the skeleton formation. If this planet had its way, it would make of the human being something that resembles a conscious crystal. It has its hold mainly in the human head, especially on the skull. Against this tendency of putting the human being under the spell of a bony helmet, Jupiter builds functions into the body that balance and check this danger. The brain blossoms and expands into the cavity of the skull from within the organism. This activity can be studied in the early stages of embryonic development. It is a microcosmic recapitulation of the relationship between the Saturn and Jupiter spheres, as we suggested in figure 6. (Also see Fig. 8)

The formation of the human forehead reveals the influence that Jupiter exerted especially during the embryonic development. Yet this planet also works in the whole organism, where it creates the balance against Saturn through the organization of the muscles. Of course, in the limbs the situation is reversed. The bony structure, the creation of Saturn, is in a central position and the muscles surround it. However, their Jupiter born activity makes the stiff human skeleton into a gracefully moving being.

This manifestation of Jupiter leads us to another revelation of its activities. Whereas in the upper human being it is concerned more with creating a thinking being, it transforms the lower human being, the limb human, into an instrument for the execution of ideas. In this twofold manifestation of Jupiter, the organism of the liver has an important part to play, and since ancient times, the liver has been regarded as an organ connected with Jupiter. The movements and the positions of this planet, about the time of incarnation, clearly reflect the capacities of a human being in this twofold activity. (Readers will understand that it is technically impossible in this publication to give detailed information about the impact of the planets on the physiological organization. This must remain reserved for possible later amplifications in connection with historic examples.)

Jupiter is priest and king. It is king in the head organism where wisdom-light permeates thinking. In the limbs, where wisdom is supposed to become deed, it has the potential to evolve a priestly faculty. This is not meant in a narrow sense, but as the latent capacity in all human activity of making practical reality the highest possible image of the idea. This may be attempted in the social realm, in the world of religious experience, or in artistic activity, etc. On the level of their highest manifestation, such impulses will not be of a revolutionary nature but will rather attempt healing and blessing. If Jupiter is not disturbed by deviating impacts from other spheres, it will not be in a great hurry about the realization of an idea. It has enough time to wait, but it will certainly always work for the future and even for the distant future. However, it will not go into that future like a shot and leave everything behind in an incomplete condition. Its steps will be carefully considered and great care will be taken not to underestimate the past and the formations derived from it. Rather, it will endeavor to weave and transform the past healthily into the future.

Thus we can also understand that Jupiter is in a real sense a focus around which even now those forces and beings are gathering to prepare the next incarnation of the Earth, the Jupiter condition. This will be one of the great stages of evolution, such as Ancient Saturn, Ancient Sun, Ancient Moon, and Earth. Spiritual investigation reveals that the future Jupiter will be built of thought substance. Just as our present Earth consists of various geological strata, so will Jupiter consist of thought strata, of thoughts which have been thought during the Earth evolution. Therefore, the close connection between Jupiter and the thinking human being appears in another realistic light.

Jupiter enters human existence, as well as the whole Earth existence, in a twofold manner. The one is in the incarnation of the creative wisdom-light and life into all those manifestations of which we spoke. The other is similar to a beckoning hand asking for that cosmic divine light to be transformed into the foundations of future life. This side of Jupiter appeals especially to the human race and demands spiritual responsibility from it.

Mars

The sphere of Mars came into existence by a further condensation of the first rudiments of our solar system, represented by the spheres of Saturn and Jupiter. This happened during the third condition of form of the fourth round of the Earth. Even then the condensation did not advance to the present mineral state of substance.

In the course of the preceding creation of the Jupiter sphere the solar system had only descended to the Rupa condition, to pure spiritual thought manifestation. Now, during the coming into existence of the sphere of Mars, a further condensation into astral spiritual substantiality took place. Thus we see three great cycles of evolution (they are sometimes called globes in occult tradition), which were necessary steps toward the final establishment of an external solar universe.

1. Akasha or Arupa condition of form, coinciding with the creation of the Saturn sphere: The intentions and deeds of the Divine world are infused into the beginning cosmos of time and space as the great memory substance of the greater cosmos.

2. Rupa or spiritual thought condition of form: The memory substance now becomes enlivened thought-being. Thereby, the past, the memory, is linked to the present in space and time. This is the creation of the sphere of Jupiter.

3. Spiritual astral condition of form: Now, the thought-beings concentrate on creating the prototypes of physical objects. In a certain sense the harmony and unity in cosmic thought is broken up and the prototypes descend to a point where they are just able to form a world of differentiated objects. This stage of evolution is manifest in the solar cosmos as the sphere of Mars.

The human soul experiences this sphere of Mars after death, when it is ready to advance from Soul land to Spirit land (see Fig. 7). Up until this moment, all the affiliations of the soul with existence in a material body have been overcome and purified. Now the soul can face the truth and the spiritual facts of material corporeality. First the truth about the physical-material object world is revealed to it in the sphere of Mars. Later on, also the spiritual prototypes of life and of soul manifestations are experienced in the spheres of Jupiter and Saturn. Thus after death the soul stands face to face with the thought forces that create the objects by which that soul was surrounded during its earthly life. On Earth the soul took in the forms of stones, of plants, etc., through their senses. These external forces hid the creating potentialities within and around them. Now, in the sphere of Mars, the external objects have disappeared, there are no senses to perceive them. There is emptiness in the place where they appeared in space, and instead the soul now sees “holes” surrounded by the thought-beings who made and make the external forms of stones, plants, beasts, and human beings. The great divorce or separation from the object world, which was experienced on the Earth, is overcome. Now the soul realizes the truth about the physical corporeality of the kingdoms of nature and of the human being.

Why does the soul have this kind of experience in the sphere of Mars after death? We can find an answer if we imagine that this planetary sphere is the field of action of the Dynamis or Spirits of Motion. This hierarchy endowed humanity with an astral or soul body during Ancient Moon evolution. Thereby the foundation of an organization that enabled inner experiences of the surrounding world was laid in the human being. The perception of an external objective world through the senses was not yet possible on Ancient Moon. Only the inner receptacle of consciousness was created, which later on enabled the realization of the presence of an object world.

This creation of the principle that endows the human being with the capacity to stand as a conscious being, face to face with the object is connected with the sphere of Mars. The hierarchy of the Dynamis has imprinted facts and capacities into that sphere which permeate the astral body as the soul, descending into an earthly incarnation, passes through that cosmic region. There, souls take up forces that give them consciousness, by which they can perceive and realize an external physical world on Earth within their own inner world. Thus one can well say that the great deed of the Dynamis on Ancient Moon, the permeation of the human being with a soul body, is recapitulated before the incarnation of each single human being when passing through the Mars sphere.

These capacities, which have been acquired before birth, are manifest during the life on Earth. They vary according to the experiences of the soul in the sphere of Mars. What becomes of these gifts of Mars, which have been built into our organization, depends on our relationship as a conscious being to the physical object world. This reveals itself in the tendencies that we may be strongly drawn to the realm of physical facts, or we may be inclined toward an attitude of withdrawal, even of negation of the physical world into which we are born. We see the gift of Mars as a source of energy by which we more or less tackle the object world surrounding us on Earth. For instance, it can infuse a desire to conquer the physical world in our consciousness. This creates the desire for knowledge through the scientific approach. Therefore, Mars is connected with the development of modern science, especially with natural science which is concerned with the objects of the physical world.

There is a possibility, of course, of endless degrees of realizing these innate powers by which we are confronted with by the physical world. Experience has shown that the Mars forces acquired in passing through this cosmic sphere on the way to an incarnation are reflected and recapitulated in the movements of the planet Mars during the time of gestation. They are then imprinted into the embryo and shape the whole organism, the nervous system, etc., so that we can work out and manifest our particular relationship to the physical world.

We realize that these Mars capacities rest on that great divorce and emancipation that was initiated on Ancient Moon for the sake of the development of independence and finally freedom. Thereby, human beings were led along the road toward a stage of existence where they could only perceive the merely external, material aspect of physical objects. This is the price that was paid for the attainment of self-consciousness, but there is a compensation for this darkness which befell humanity and that is the soul’s experience in the sphere of Mars after death, which we described above.

Human beings then live in the light of truth about the physical object world and unite with the thought-beings who make the physical objects, and they can in a certain moment say, “Thou Art That” (the ancient “Tat twam asi”, “I am myself”, or “I bear in myself the objects”).

We see that the facts and impacts of the sphere of Mars on human beings and the kingdoms of nature are closely connected with the evolution of Ancient Moon. As a matter of fact, occult investigation reveals that the size or volume of the cosmic sphere of Mars corresponds to that of the Ancient Moon planet. Therefore, this planet works in the solar system as a great reminder of the Moon stage of evolution. It is similar to the Sphinx in ancient mythology, sitting at the roadside along which all creatures descending into physical existence have to pass. The question of this cosmic Mars-Sphinx is connected with the great crisis of that Ancient Moon evolution. If the passer-by can find the answer contained in inner, moral evolution, then the Sphinx will vanish; otherwise, she will destroy the wanderer.

We can well say that Mars is the great disintegrator of spiritual union and harmony in the cosmos. This is the aspect of Mars as the god of war and aggression in all ancient mythologies, but it is only one of its manifestations. However, one should not imagine that the warlike Mars is solely connected with the human race. None of the numberless objects and beings in the kingdoms of nature would exist if the spirits of the sphere of Mars had not prepared the ground. The differentiation into species has a direct connection with it. We can see in it a continuation of the great split which occurred on Ancient Moon. Through that differentiation, the law of opposites began to work in nature, and there arose the yearning of the creature for redemption and reunion with the whole.

A fuller comprehension of this aspect of Mars is only possible if we realize its effect on the differentiation of the human race. All souls who descend into earthly incarnations have passed through the sphere of Mars, the region of the prototypes of the physical objects. One is therefore inclined to think that on account of this prenatal heritage, all human beings have common views on the facts of physical existence. This is a mistake. Our task on the Earth is to acquire an object consciousness, the realization of the external world from the viewpoint of the self. We can only do this by standing back, as it were, by living in the state of divorce from the world of the spirit. In other words, at first we forget the spirit on Earth, and we face an external facade, as it were, in the objects around us, and then only gradually, by development of higher stages of consciousness, may we penetrate to the spiritual truth.

This state, in which the present human being first finds itself on Earth, is just the opposite of the spiritual constitution of the sphere of Mars. It is, in a certain sense, the outer shell of Mars. Therefore for the sake of the necessary development of consciousness, the human race is bound to develop one-sided and diverse views on the physical world. This diversity is, as it were, the scale or the picture of successive degrees of human consciousness. We can imagine that the human races and nations came into existence out of this diversity of earthly consciousness.

This development is closely connected with human speech. Our inner reaction to our experiences of the external world is the word. Our speech is the expression the concepts which we form from our perceptions. Yet, we will express in speech our inner experience of the object world according to our standard of consciousness. Therefore, we can imagine the differentiation of languages having come into existence. Consequently, Mars is also connected with the capacity of speech in the single human being, because the shadow of the spiritual unity in the sphere of Mars is diversity on the physical plane (see Fig. 9).

The development of consciousness through the differentiating impact of Mars is still more pronounced where he appears as the war god in humanity. Ancient Greek mythology had a vivid pictorial capacity of describing this fact. During the Trojan War, Mars or Ares was found to be extremely unreliable. One day he fought on the side of the Trojans, the following day he helped the Greeks. This is a magnificent characterization. The task of Mars is to instigate conflict between peoples and nations, because conflict is one of the many possibilities of awakening consciousness. Therefore Mars cannot confine its influence to one party alone.

Thus we can also understand that Mars is connected with the iron in the Earth. The modern world has made tremendous progress toward the development of an earthly object consciousness through the use of iron. We need only study the predominant use of this metal in modern civilization and its effects on individuals. Iron, the gift of Mars, is also contained in the human blood. Thereby we are able to develop the ego, the differentiating agency of our earthly existence.

It may appear that Mars is an evil planet that brings strife and antagonism into earthly existence, but in reality it carries a tremendous challenge in its influence on the human being. The potential of being able to withdraw to an egocentric position throws the door open to evil and destruction; however, it also offers us the possibility of doing creative deeds out of our free decision. This is the positive aspect of Mars, which is still recognized very little in our time.

Therefore, the impact of Mars on the human being can not be considered only in the sense of the usual astrological predictions. It can be only handled with an attitude of great occult tact, because the potentialities in Mars can be developed in the sense of either creative or destructive. Occult investigations of this kind can only be fruitful and helpful if they are guided by a will and a capacity to heal the great sin of the world, the divorce from the spirit.

The Sun

The Sun of Creation

The sphere of Mars came into existence during the third condition of form of the fourth great round of Earth evolution. Now we will enter a description of the fourth condition of form, in which we are still living and which we shall live for a long time to come. The solar universe, as it has evolved so far, can be imagined as it is suggested in figure 4. The spheres A, B, and C represent the spheres of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. We are aware, of course, that any such diagrammatic pictures can only be regarded as an approximate means or direction toward realization of the truth.

We must now imagine that the contracting impulse in the solar universe continued at the beginning of the fourth or present condition of form. Consequently, we should find at a certain time a central body around or in the neighborhood of the ideal center of all the spheres in figure 4. This “body” inside the sphere of Mars was the Sun, which then still retained in its being the Earth, the Moon, and the so-called inferior planets Mercury and Venus.

It will be our task now to consider the cosmic biography and the working of this Sun. So far, we have been speaking about contraction, by which the solar system has step by step been created, after the separation from the greater universe. Who exerted this contractive activity? Our answer is, the hierarchical beings who are connected with the Sun.

The investigations of spiritual science reveal the Sun as a focus of non-space in the universe. It acts like an “I” but of cosmic grandeur, arranging a spatial universe around itself. An investigation of the nature of the human “I” leads to similar conclusions. This “I” is certainly not a spatial entity, although it manifests itself through the means of space and time. We cannot point to it and say, “there it is”, even with the means of clairvoyant perception. It is likened to a “hole” in the world of space and time.

If we magnify this fact to cosmic conceptions, then we come to the Sun. It is the focus of activity of the Exusiai or Spirits of Form, whom we previously met on Ancient Saturn. We will remember that they are connected with the human ego, with the painful path of preparation until they are able to infuse the “I” into the human being.

The focus of non-space in the solar world, which is the Sun, worked and still works as a vacuum. It attracted all that was in its surrounding as the spatial foundations of the solar system. This was a process in time; therefore the Sun is also intimately connected with time.

An idea such as this seems to contradict all conceptions of modern astronomy about the nature of the Sun, which is generally considered to be a compact body consisting of either a solid or a gaseous core. To this we can only reply that it seems to be an illogical conclusion that terrestrial laws of nature can be straightaway transplanted into the sky. In many instances it can be proved that such transfers lead to impossible conceptions.

The inherent quality of contraction in our solar system worked from the beginning as the expression of the activity of the Spirits of Form. Only later was a focus also established, the external body of the present Sun. What did these forces attract from the periphery of the juvenile solar system toward the center? In the periphery and beyond it, we find the fixed-star world represented by the constellations of the Zodiac. Zodiacal substance was drawn by a mighty cosmic suction into the realm of space and time of the solar world. Thus there first came into being the regions of the archetypes of soul formations, of life and of physical objects. These are the spheres of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Later they were drawn into the vortex of earthly object existence. This is the stage of creation which is described in the first chapter of Genesis.

We can also understand that the archetypal order of all kingdoms of nature is twelvefold. Investigations on the basis of spiritual science have revealed that the mineral world can be classified according to 12 great groups of archetypal character. The plant kingdom also demonstrates a twelvefold order. In the animal world we find 12 great species or families, for instance, of which the mammals and birds are two.

The spiritual prototypes of all existing objects were drawn from the twelvefold Zodiac, or its predecessor the highest spheres of the spiritual world, and were gradually imprinted into spatial existence. This is the Paradise of Genesis. It did not exist on the solidified Earth to which we now belong, but we should imagine it in the surrounding aura of the Earth. In a certain sense, it consisted of the imprints of the divine archetypes of objects in the ether.

We hear in Genesis that on the sixth day man was created. We read that he was created “in the image of God”. He, too, had been born from those mighty spiritual archetypes that dwell in and beyond the Zodiac. Therefore, he is, with regard to his physical organization, the twelvefold entity which we described in Part Two.

The first chapters of Genesis also tell us of the great Fall and the loss of paradise. It is the moment when humanity had to descend from the heights of ethereal existence into a material body. From then onward, the human being had to wander from birth to death in ever repeated earthly incarnations. The body became less and less flexible, until its organization was no longer able to reflect the fullness of that archetypal twelve-foldness, which was arranged in our solar cosmos through the creative activity of the Sun. The single human being on Earth represented only one-twelfth of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac. The fact of having to be born at a certain time, expressed by the birthday Sun, allowed the human being to represent only the archetype of the one constellation on Earth, in which the Sun stood at the moment of birth. Thus the single human being is a representative of one of the 12 archetypes, just as the single animal species manifests one twelfth of the Zodiac. We shall have to speak later on about the redemption of these consequences of the great Fall.

So far, we imagined the Earth, the Moon, and the inner planets as still being united with the Sun. How can we visualize the further separations? In figure 4, we pictured the still united greater Sun standing in the ideal center of the three spheres A, B, and C, which had already come into existence. We might think that further contraction was no longer possible, because the sphere C had exhausted itself, as it were, into the point of the Sun (see Fig. 10). The four circles touching C should be imagined as being representative of an infinite number of circles along the greater circle C. However, a closer examination reveals that further contraction was still possible. A demonstration of this possibility is attempted in figure 11. We ought to imagine, however, that the four groups of tangential circles moving toward the points C are meant to stand as representatives for an infinite number of such groups along the circle, or sphere C. We thought it unwise to include more than these four groups of circles in the diagram, because it might otherwise become unintelligible.

If we follow up this possibility, we make a remarkable discovery. The spheres A, B, and C ultimately died, as it were, into the point of the Sun. However, the development does not stop there; it goes through the point of naught and appears again beyond. Thus the spheres D, E, and F come into existence (Fig. 11). Yet these spheres have a totally different character from those of A, B, and C, because they are obviously inverted.

This can help us to understand the coming into existence of the Earth and also of the planets Mercury and Venus. What actually happened, after a body of subtle fiery and airy consistency had been born—the still united Sun, was a further condensation. A part of the warmth and air of the Sun contracted into water. The higher hierarchical beings whose dominion was the Sun, especially the Spirits of Form, did not follow this development. They separated from the body that accumulated the condensed water substance. Thus we have a Sun that remained more in the center and another planet which was condensed along the points F. This was the Earth, which was then still united with the Moon.

One fact in this picture can be a valuable contribution toward the understanding of this condensation of the Earth. The sphere made by the points F, the orbit of the Earth, comes very dose to the sphere C, which is the orbit of Mars. It appears almost as the lower or inner ceiling of the Mars sphere. We will remember that this sphere of Mars is the spiritual region of the prototypes of physical objects, but with regard to its size or volume, etc., it is also the cosmic memory of Ancient Moon. That Ancient Moon planet, at the time of its highest degree of condensation, was in a watery condition. Now, after the condensation of the Earth and its separation from the Sun, it took over, as it were, the heritage of Ancient Moon (preserved in Mars) and became a fluid body itself.

This picture offers us the possibility to see the creative activity of the Spirits of Form (the Elohim of the Bible) much more clearly. The mighty being of the Sun in the solar universe, now separated from the coarser Moon/Earth, had become their abode. This Sun, which we described earlier as a non-spatial vacuum, exerts a contracting or suctional influence upon the spatial universe around it. In a sense, we can even say that this Sun constantly creates space, but we assuredly can not confine its total being to the globe which we see in the sky. Its contractive potentiality extends to the outermost boundaries of our solar system. All the other spheres are maintained by this Sun’s superseding spherical activity.

Within this greater Sun’s creative vortex, the Moon-Earth of which we spoke appeared at a certain moment. It was exposed, as it were, to the stream of cosmic zodiacal substance, which was sucked by the Sun from the periphery toward the center (see Fig. 12). If we, furthermore, imagine that the Earth began to move along its orbit, we can easily understand that our planet was exposed in time to all the zodiacal substance drawn in by the Sun. The last stage that this substance passed through before it reached the Earth was the sphere of Mars, the region of the prototypes of physical objects. One cosmic step further, on the Earth, these prototypes were infused or imprinted upon matter. This is one of the aspects of the creation of a material Earth world.

Where did matter, the “matrix” into which the spiritual prototypes could be imprinted, come from? In order to answer this question, we must introduce another aspect of the Sun. Figure 12 intends to suggest the vortex of zodiacal, archetype substance that is sucked into the solar system by the suctional activity of the Sun. We can imagine that something like a tremendous compression takes place on the outer limb or periphery of the Sun body. This compression is likely to reach a degree of density which one can imagine would result in a complete disintegration.

The zodiacal substance has to pass through the various spheres of spatial density of the solar universe, but ultimately it is forced to enter that focus of non-space represented by the Sun. This complete reversal, taking place on the surface of the Sun, suggests gigantic processes of disintegration, which we can faintly compare with the breaking up of matter on Earth through fire. We can even compare it with atomic disintegration, although we do not suggest that those events on the Sun are really of the same kind as earthly processes. The place of this cosmic transformation for us on Earth is the globe of the visible Sun that sends us light and warmth.

We must also include in this picture the possibility that a kind of residue of those processes of dissolution on the Sun are left behind. If we burn matter on the Earth the ashes remain. Of course, we cannot simply apply this idea to the Sun. The substance that is disintegrated there is not earthly matter. It is condensed zodiacal substance; we might even say that it is of astral-etheric nature. The “smoke and the ashes” of their breaking up are the emanations of the Sun, comprehensible by the senses. The external constitution of the Sun—the various layers—produces the light, heat, and also other effects. This is the Sun which astronomy observes, that which has become external, the ejected “ashes”.

These emanations are radiating back from the Sun into cosmic space. Thus, for instance, the Earth is exposed to a twofold impact (see Fig. 13). From the depth of cosmic space come the spiritual archetypes of the physical object world. From the Sun comes light and warmth, etc., in which is contained the “ashes” of the originally purely spiritual archetypes, which have now been reduced to a non-spiritual caricature, as it were. This twofold impact is the foundation of that spatial world of matter. Matter is “calcified”, frozen spirit. On Earth the two streams clash, in other words, the cosmic archetypes impress themselves into earthly matter. A simple consideration can help to make this picture clearer: The daylight, the light of the Sun, makes the physical objects comprehensible to the senses. The warmth of the Sun allows living beings to temporarily remain in a spatial form.

This is the majestic aspect of the Sun as the focus of all creation. In this sense we can truly call it the Elohim Sun, the abode of those powerful spiritual beings described in the first chapter of Genesis. But it is also deeply connected with the mysteries of death, which becomes quite evident in the death experience of the human being. Occult investigation reveals that after death one enters the spiritual world through the gateway of the Sun. This is not just a kind of poetic picture or the like. Just as one often refers to the position of the stars at the time of the nativity of a human being, so one can also speak of a “horoscope” at the moment of the death of a human being. There the actual position of the Sun is important. All the stages of life after death are related to this Sun with mathematical precision. We know, of course, that one can enter the “gate of the Sun” only after a long period of “purification”. Only after the last links with the earthly world have been severed and after having gone through that “consuming fire” between the Earth and the Sun can one enter the regions of Spirit land. (see Fig. 7).

The Sun of Prophecy and Salvation

The picture that we have tried to paint so far of the planetary cosmos seems to harmonize with the Copernican world conception. The Sun stands in the center, the planets move in great orbits around this Sun according to the well-known Copernican order. The Earth itself is a place in this cosmos on which uninterrupted cycles alternating between creation and death occur. Where will this universe end? The answer of modern science is that it will terminate in either some kind of sudden cataclysm or slow death. But what about the world of, for instance, human thinking, human civilization, cultural and spiritual values? Are they not bound one day to be irresistibly drawn into the general vortex of cosmic decline? Are, then, these aspirations of the human race not doomed to senselessness?

The Copernican world picture is correct. One can even find it on the basis of a spiritual evolution, which we tried to describe. However, it can lead no further than the lowest point of evolution, to the point where matter appears as the dead image of the spirit. Therefore our age has discovered and adopted this picture of the world, because present humanity, generally speaking, can only grasp dead mineral matter. The mystery of life is a closed realm.

As soon as we start to imagine spiritual forces and beings at work within this universe of ours, then the whole picture changes. We have become so used to the idea that spirit, if it is accepted as a reality at all, is completely divorced from the world of matter. In the best case, we live in a kind of dualism, without giving ourselves a full account of it. Otherwise we should feel obliged to ask much more often how it is that in an obviously material human body dwells an intelligent, in other words, a spiritual individuality.

Although the Earth seems to be a place where the spirit is dying into matter, we ought not to forget that we develop on this planet the potential faculty of object ego consciousness. Death, which seems to be the ultimate end of all Earth existence, is certainly a point of utmost zero in the universe; but the consciousness and the experience of the ego can rise from it. Can this not be a spiritual power, though perhaps still small, that may radiate as a new beginning into the cosmos? This Earth may appear as a dead end in the cosmos, like an alien enclosure, but it certainly contributes a new impulse, which must be discernible in some kind of external movement.

On the other hand we know that the Sun is also not eternally standing still. Astronomy has discovered that it moves in space. According to modern observations, it races along a line that extends between the constellations of Dove, south of Orion and Lyre, near Hercules. The Sun, through its suctional activity, takes the whole solar system along on this journey.

Let us dwell for a moment on this picture of the potentialities of Sun and Earth. The Sun has grown, as it were, from the periphery toward the center. This is the path of creation, and therefore the Sun stands as the representative for the whole created solar universe. It is the root, the very archetype of the sphere. The Earth, however, is the utter zero in the whole setting of the cosmos. It has descended to the point of utmost condensation. We can therefore say that our planet is representative of centric formation. Its only hope is the possibility of growing from the point where it arrived toward the periphery. This possibility we shall have to investigate further on (see Figs. 14 & 15).

If we take this duality seriously, we come to a totally different principle of cosmic movement. We tried to indicate this in figure 16. It is no more than a very first, imperfect indication. There the two manifestations of spheric and centric space are interlinked and are penetrating one another. The Sun on its path, we can imagine, is deviated from the course it would normally take by points of collision between spheric and centric space. The result is a lemniscatory movement. Our Earth, together with the planets, is taken along by the Sun toward the constellation of the Lyre. Therefore, it also moves in a lemniscate behind the Sun.

We should like to emphasize that the diagram produced here is by no means the whole story. The principle, however, is correct. Rudolf Steiner suggested it many years ago as the reality of cosmic movement from the viewpoint of spiritual investigation. The details, the correspondence to the observable facts in the sky and the mathematical problems, are an immensely complicated matter, which belong entirely in the realm of astronomical research and observation. We must therefore, unfortunately, abstain on these pages from further elaboration.

These views on astronomical questions need by no means be taken as a contradiction of the Copernican world conception. We explained how far we feel justified in following this view, but we have also shown where the necessity to advance to spiritual conceptions of astronomical facts arises.

The lemniscatory world picture follows a consideration of the cosmos as the living organism of the divine hierarchical world. For instance, according to this conception of the cosmos, the great seasonal festivals of the year, the festive events in the Christian calendar, are not just the result of arbitrary ideas and arrangements of humanity. They are cornerstones in the interrelationship between Sun and Earth, whereas they have hardly any place in the Copernican picture.

There is one important point in the lemniscatory aspect that we should like to especially consider: Sun and Earth are moving on two separate lemniscates which, however, intersect in the center (Fig. 16). Thus it happens that the Earth, at certain times, steps into the place where the Sun had been some months before. This takes place twice during one year in the crossing point of the lemniscate.

During these events, the Earth is enwrapped in the aura of the Sun, and we can imagine that it is a most important occurrence in the life of the Earth. This fact was actually known in pre-Christian times. Rudolf Steiner points out in a lecture of October 1, 1916, that during the time when the Earth approached this position, important Isis festivals were celebrated in Egypt. In other religions as well, such as the Druidic Mysteries, this event was received with great ceremonial attention. These festivals were deeply connected with the ancient capacities of prophecy. The priests and sages in those sanctuaries felt that in such cosmic hours, the curtain before the future parted and that coming events were laid open, right down to practical details concerning, for instance, agriculture, etc.

Here we are confronted with another aspect of the Sun. Why were those cosmic occasions in the relationship between Sun and Earth connected with prophecy and with the Isis Mysteries?

The Copernican world conception can only go as far as to suggest that the Earth with its population has been sent out into desolation, sickness, and death. The lemniscatory outlook, however, which we indicated in a very primitive picture (Fig. 16), permits the view of a Sun that cares for and has a vivid interest in the destiny of our planet. This loving attitude of the Sun goes so far as to draw the Earth, at certain times, into the aura which it leaves behind on its journey through cosmic space.

This intimate relationship between Sun and Earth was of tremendous comfort to the ancient people. For them it was the annually re-testified certainty that the good, creative spirits of the Sun had not forsaken the seemingly dark Earth. They knew the Earth had to go through its dark hour of existence in order to ultimately achieve a high prize. For them these events contained the prophecy that one day in the future the Great Spirit of the Sun would bring Himself to birth in the womb of the cosmos, the Earth. For this reason, these festivals were connected with the Isis Mysteries.

This ever recurring prophecy and the spirit of reassurance that was experienced in the ancient mysteries, when the Earth entered the aura of the Sun, became physical reality in Christ’s incarnation. Then the divine Aura of the Sun united with the Earth. In post-Christian times, these events when the Earth steps into this place, which happens twice each year, can become seasons of remembrance of Christ’s deed. It has a different meaning from that of pre-Christian ages, but it is of similar great importance for the life of the Earth. The union of the great Sun Aura with the Earth took place after the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan. Certain events in Christ’s life reveal this union quite clearly, and three of them happened, with great probability, during times when the Earth had moved into the cosmic place where the Sun had been shortly before: The first was the Wedding of Cana (John II), the transformation of water into wine, the second was the Feeding of the Five Thousand (John VI, and the third was the Raising of Lazarus (John XI) and the following last weeks before Golgotha.

Occult investigation reveals that Christ was the great guide of the Exusiai or Spirits of Form (in Hebrew, the Elohim). We heard that the field of activity of the Exusiai is the sphere of the Sun, and that these spiritual forces of the Sun were pre-eminently engaged in the creation of the solar universe. Therefore it changed the whole course of the Earth when the great leading Spirit of the Exusiai descended to it. Desolation, despair, and death had almost taken hold of the Earth when the Creator Spirit of the universe entered a humble human form, suffered a human destiny—even to the point of death, and thereby brought healing and resurrection to the suffering Earth and its inhabitants.

The external Sun, the heritage of the great Elohim Sun, continues imitating, as it were, the initial creative and maintaining activity. Since the event on Golgotha, the spiritual Sun Aura has united with the Earth. To this Sun we shall now turn our attention.

The Sun in the Earth and the Future

When we spoke earlier about the Sun, we compared it with the human “I”. The “interior” of the Sun, according to occult investigation, is non-space, a hole in space. Likewise the human ego is of non-spatial character. We are, however, aware that the great cosmic “I” of the Sun is of an infinitely higher dignity than the human ego. It certainly has nothing of that narrowness which the human ego can develop and which lends itself to the very concept of egoism.

The “I” of the cosmos is universal love. It embraces in absolute altruism the whole universe, but sacrifices everything into creation and maintains the creature. Similar to the external sunlight, it cannot hold back anything that it receives from the depths of the greater universe. It shares it unrestrictedly, though in transformed condition.

This “I” of the cosmos has united with the Earth. Every human being who is born on this planet can share in it. All depends on his or her own decision. When Christ spoke the word “I”, He pointed to this greater cosmic “I” that can live in every human heart who is willing to accept it. Thereby we can become a real citizen of the universe. In time, even one’s inner spiritual faculties, which are still slumbering, can grow to cosmic dimension and intensity. Death is overcome, because Christ established on the Earth the ever youthful potentiality of cosmic existence, the resurrection. The meaning of the Earth has been fulfilled. The object consciousness, which for the sake of its own becoming had to live in the state of the great divorce from the Divine world, has been crowned with the “l” of the cosmos that will bring about in time the union with all universal existence.

Before the coming of Christ, the Earth had become something likened to a great cosmic grave. Divine archetypal substance was constantly sacrificed into earthly material existence, but the healthy realization of this object world in and through ego consciousness, which was the purpose of the existence of the Earth, has been lost more and more. This is evident in our present conditions. In all spheres of human life, which have not yet been permeated by the Christ impulse, the pre-Christian calamity is still prevailing. There the sense for the significance of human culture, the development of the sciences, the arts, and the religious life, is dwindling away fast. People are more and more coming to regard these activities only as a means of personal satisfaction, for the establishment of power, for the sake of keeping the masses quiet, etc. We have numberless examples of these developments around us.

The healing of this decline can come only from the acceptance of the Christ impulse and only if its cosmic significance is comprehended. Thereby all human activity and aspiration can be lifted to an entirely new level of significance in the universe. The cultural life of humanity can radiate into the cosmos and not remain an end in itself.

An attentive contemplation of the diagrams given on these pages will reveal that the planet Earth represents a point of utmost condensation and contraction in the solar universe (see Fig. 14). Thus a place was established in the cosmos where the majesty of death could unfold and form the grave. The Sun did not descend in the beginning to this point. It remained in a state of cosmic youthfulness and universal permeability. Since the spiritual Aura of the Sun has united with our planet, the Earth has received a new impulse, a new meaning, and a far-reaching task. The Earth has the potentiality of becoming a Sun itself in the future.

This potent new Sun is still invisible to the eyes. Nevertheless, its radiance is already effective in the solar universe. It unites with that which we called in figure 16 the impact of centric space.

Thus we come to the picture in figure 15. The dotted circles and curves represent the orbits of the planets according to the Copernican conception. For simplicity’s sake, only the Earth, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have been selected. The Sun is standing in the center and exerts that suctional activity, which we described earlier. The Earth itself is the point of utmost densification, the termination of the old universe. There already exists, however, the germ of a new cosmos, established by the interrelationship between Sun and Earth, by the effects of the lemniscatory movement on Sun and Earth. From this Sun-Earth, new impulses are radiating into the solar cosmos, indicated by the tangential circles commencing in Earth.

Can we find any proof for this radiation? It is contained in all human activity that, from a spiritual point of view, is worthy of going into posterity as positive factors. All that which is born in scientific development, in the arts, in religion, in social formations, and that helps humanity on the road to spiritual progress is part of the new radiation. In other words, all human cultural activity that accepts and aspires to the spirit of evolution and moral perfection is on the road to the new cosmos. The great Archetype of positive human culture is Christ, the Aura of the Sun working within the Earth.

These facts are of tremendous importance for the soul between death and a new birth. Through the processes leading to incarnation, we receive the gifts of the old cosmos, the cosmos of divine creation. After our death this cosmos is eagerly waiting for that which we return with as increased gifts. The starry universe is in a state of expectation. The study of star charts made for the moment of death reveals, unmistakably, this new connection of the human being with the cosmos.

We have indicated in figure 7, the path of the soul after death through the heavenly world. The diagram is worked out only as far as the sphere of Saturn, the third region of Spirit land, but we can assume that more regions follow further out. These highest spheres of the spiritual world are described in Rudolf Steiner’s Theosophy.

In the fourth to the seventh regions of Spirit land, we find the archetypes of those spiritual and cultural achievements of the human race, which we described above. We also find there the prototypes of the divine intentions that are working in the human being and which can only slowly be realized through numerous incarnations. When the soul enters these regions after death, it is faced with its own higher self, with the progress it has made toward the high aims of evolution, but also with the failures.

These regions are beyond Saturn. They are in the vicinity of the newly discovered planets Uranus, Neptune, and since 1930 Pluto. From a spiritual point of view, they did not originally belong to our solar system. Only in later phases of evolution have they attached themselves to the solar cosmos.

We can understand this if we realize that these regions are in a state of becoming. As much as the evolution of humanity progresses in the spirit of the cosmic Christ, so much are these new planetary spheres becoming realities in the cosmos. But also the failures, the falsities, the denials of the spirit of progress are manifest there. They work on as the seeds of natural and social catastrophes. We hope to describe the impact of these planets in more detail on a later occasion. (See the author’s, Drama of the Universe.)

The Inferior Planets

In figure 11, we suggested a possible idea about the coming into existence of the inferior planets, Mercury and Venus. At the beginning of the fourth condition of form of the present round of the Earth, the Sun still contained the Earth, the Moon, and the inner planets. Then came a time when the densification of substance had reached a degree that made it impossible for the higher Sun-beings to remain united with the Earth-Moon. The Sun separated from it, and we see then the separated celestial body shaping its own existence along the orbit F in figure 11. This we have described in the preceding chapter.

We can imagine the Sun after this segregation as still much larger than the present Sun. Then, after some time, it began to separate two more bodies from its own being. Certain spiritual hierarchies could not follow the exalted evolution of the Sun. They therefore created two more celestial foci that were suitable for their own development. These were the planets Mercury and Venus, which came gradually into being along the orbits D and E in figure 11.

Meanwhile, the Earth had undergone a tremendous coarsening. The Moon was still united with it, and the Moon beings transformed the Earth into a place where gigantic formations of growth covered the face of our planet. These formations cannot be compared with the present, comparatively subtle plant growth. They were processes of a general hardening faintly remembered in the trunk formations of present tree or in certain kinds of horn substances. At a certain moment, however, the Moon separated from the Earth. The beings of the Moon could work in a more objective way upon the Earth from outside, leaving the Earth free to develop along its own lines.

We have previously pointed out that the inner planets, including the Moon-Earth, represent “inversions” in the cosmos. The superior planets came into existence along the “outer” rims of their spheres or demarcation lines of contraction (see Fig. 4). This is reversed in figure 11. There the orbits of the inner planets are indicated by the “inner” ceilings of their boundaries of condensation.

This is a remarkable difference, and we can use it as a key for the understanding of these inferior planets. Their existence is the outcome of an evolution that had gone through the “focus of naught” of the Sun and appeared again “on the other side”. They are therefore reversals of the superior or outer planets in the following manner:

Saturn	Mercury
Jupiter	Venus
Mars	Moon-Earth and after the separation, the Moon

We feel obliged, however, to mention a fact that occult investigation has revealed. The sphere of Mercury has the character of Venus in an occult sense. Similarly, the sphere of Venus appears, in the light of true spiritual science, as Mercury.

At a time when the ancient mysteries gradually became decadent and profane, for instance by forced, superficial initiations during the age of the Roman Caesars, it was deemed necessary by certain mystery centers to hide the true nature and wisdom of the spheres of these planets. Therefore, one says in occultism “their names were exchanged”. However, this is a rather complex matter, which we cannot attempt to describe now, though we should like to emphasize that this does not directly affect the present methods of delineation of these planets. Only in matters of definite occult research, these facts must be observed. In the following presentation, we use the names of these planets as they are known to our contemporaries and add their mystery names in parenthesis.

Mercury (M-Venus)

We described above how the Spirits of Form, or Exusiai, are chiefly connected with the sphere of the Sun. The hierarchy standing below them, the Spirits of Personality, or Archai, have their field of activity in the sphere of Mercury (M-Venus). Therefore, there lives in the impact of this sphere something of the character of the Archai, expressed to a certain extent in their cosmic biography. We will recall to our memory, therefore, the main points of their connection with cosmic evolution, which we indicated earlier.

The Archai achieved a level of consciousness that can be compared with our present stage of self-realization. In order to do this, they had to make use of our ancestors of at the state in which they were on Ancient Saturn. We will remember that these ancestors were only warmth entities during the condition of highest densification on Ancient Saturn. They had no life and no soul. The whole body of that planet consisted of these warmth images. It appeared like a mighty mirror. The facts in the surroundings, mainly the activities of the hierarchical beings, were reflected in this mirror-planet. Thus, the Archai experienced and realized their own existence in those mirror-beings of Ancient Saturn, in the warmth ancestors of humanity.

Since those stages of evolution, the Archai are connected with that mysterious Ur-fire. During the Earth evolution, when the Sun-Earth was condensed to the stage of fire, the Archai were again at work. The human being then had quite a different form and nature. Only gradually did the stream of warm blood develop within the enclosure of the human body. The Archai were especially concerned with this development. They made it possible for human beings to become self-conscious personalities on the foundation of the warmth of the blood stream.

These facts can give us a starting point for contemplations on the nature and the influence of Mercury. The biography of the Archai is inscribed and working in its sphere. This is the reason why Mercury is so deeply connected with the creation of bodily foundations for the development of the human personality and earthly intelligence.

We said earlier that the sphere of this planet is an inversion of Saturn. This is a reflection of the fact that the Archai used the Ancient Saturn planet (whose image is the present Saturn) for their inversion, for their own self-realization. The present Saturn builds the skeleton, the fundamental outline of the physical body, into the human form. Through the forces which the soul acquires before birth in the sphere of Mercury, human beings can realize through the skeleton, their own personal existence distinct from existence around them. Saturn also builds the skeleton, so to speak, of personal destiny into the human being. This skeleton of destiny is formed by human beings between death and new birth, out of the contemplation of past incarnations. Thus Saturn indeed weaves the threads of the past into the present. The position of this planet at the time of incarnation is a cosmic reflection of the higher will in which human beings lived before birth.

Mercury helps us to dwell within the whole make-up of our destiny, in other words, in our Saturn organization, as an integrated personality. It assists us in forgetting, in the average case, all reminiscences of past incarnations, lest we feel split up into several beings. Only when one is sufficiently prepared, will Mercury draw back the curtains that hide the past.

Mercury works, indeed, in our life like a screen on which appear only the shadow pictures of the real events in the background of the stage of destiny. These shadow images are our capacities, intentions, and impulses, all that which makes us, to a degree, intelligent. Where do these faculties, these impulses in reality come from? They have their root in previous incarnations, in the progress or failures of ones own past. Only when we attain the capacity of higher knowledge, which spiritual science calls intuition, can we look back and investigate past incarnations. This is the highest manifestation of the Mercury forces in the human being.

We need for our self-realization, as an intelligent being, the warmth of the bloodstream. This is also a remnant of Ancient Saturn, where the Archai experienced their “self” in the warmth of that planet. Therefore, the warmth organism of the human being is, to a certain extent, dependent on the prenatal influences of Mercury and Saturn on the human embryo. This is also connected with the process of breathing. But to simply say, as is sometimes done, that Mercury is associated with the lungs is too crude. The processes are much more complicated and need more scientific investigation.

The sphere of Mercury (M-Venus) makes the whole human organism a vessel for the development of personality. It cannot be confined to one single region of the body, but it works in all three spheres: in the head, in the rhythmic system, and in the limbs. Through the brain, personality is expressed as intellectual capacity. In the rhythmic system it manifests through the warmth of the blood and the connection with the breathing, as was just mentioned. Lastly, the personality can also be expressed in the movement of the limbs. However, the differentiation in each individual case, the emphasis on one or the other of these three bodily spheres can be studied in connection with the movements of Mercury during the time of gestation.

From figure 11, we can gather that for an observer on Earth the inferior planets appear to stand at various times either behind or in front, or to the right or left of the Sun. They continually change their relationship to Sun and Earth. Thus during the embryonic development of a human being, these planets offer a multitude of aspects and implications of astronomical significance. These movements and gestures are an expression of the heritage that human beings bring into this life from the time before birth when they were identical, in a spiritual sense, with the cosmic spheres.

The development of personality also contains great dangers. We know that it is connected with the tendency to egoism, the unavoidable accompaniment of the unfolding of the self. We can become too proud and self-contained with regard to intellectual capacities and achievements. We can also get too deeply involved in our earthly existence. These are the great temptations that are lurking, as it were, to the right and left of our path toward the expression of our self as a personality.

These temptations, to which the human being is constantly exposed, are connected with Mercury (M-Venus). The progressive spiritual beings of this sphere offer their help. They are working with the element of time, with the possibilities that can be evolved in repeated earthly incarnations, with the changes in the development of human consciousness through the ages. The Archai, the great masters of the sphere of Mercury (M-Venus), are therefore also called Spirits of the Ages or Time. They hold in their hands the greater views and aspects that supersede the narrow bounds of one earthly life. There are also retarding spirits connected with Mercury who act as our tempters.

This is the reason why only a profound occult knowledge and a loving Christian attitude, which has permeated the whole human organism, can attempt to handle the connection between the human being and the world of the stars, for instance, at the moment of incarnation. Unless one has a deep esoteric understanding of this connection, one cannot really help a human being in the great battle between the forces of spiritual progress, representative in the Christ impulse, and the powerful opponents of healthy human self-manifestation.

Venus (M-Mercury)

This sphere has become the sphere of activity of the Archangels. We should therefore wish to recapitulate their cosmic biography, as it were, because this must be inherent in the impact of this planet on the human being.

The Archangels experienced their equivalent of the human stage of consciousness on Ancient Sun. On Ancient Saturn they were already concerned with the archetypal layout of what later became the human senses. Now, on Ancient Sun, they developed their humanhood through a further cultivation of the germinal senses of humanity.

These senses were, however, far from being as perfect as the organization of the senses of a present human being. On Ancient Sun these senses, within the organism of the Sun ancestor, were more like breathing organs through which the substances of an already existing lower kingdom were flowing in and out of.

In all successive stages of cosmic evolution, the Archangels were connected with these and similar preoccupations. For instance, during the Earth condition, they are especially associated with the air that had come into existence, at a certain moment, through progressive densification. We see here, again, a link between air as the medium of the Archangel’s activity and human breathing.

All this gives us a foundation on which we can approach the function of the planet Venus (MMercury). Mercury (M-Venus) builds an organization into human beings that can assist us in developing our own personality. There we are still preoccupied with our own inner being. Venus (M-Mercury) helps in building up another organic tendency by which we are enabled to establish a connection with our surroundings.

The capacity to have this relationship to the external world is brought about by one’s heritage from the sojourn in the sphere of Venus (M-Mercury). Again, we find that the movements and gestures of this planet during gestation express, in a kind of cosmic hieroglyph, the individual condition of a human being—the degree and character of these connections. Venus works in all three spheres of the human organism.

However, this planet has a special hold on the rhythmic organization. Therefore it is intensely connected with the process of breathing. In breathing, a continuous exchange of air takes place in which all living beings of the Earth share, according to their physiological conditions. Nowadays we usually do not attach much importance to the fact that we constantly inhale an element which is the common property of our planet. This was different in ancient times. Human beings were aware that the inhaled air was a messenger of processes and beings beyond their own organizations. They felt that even the messengers of the Gods were moving on the wings of the air which they breathed.

Here also lies the reason why the impact of this planet on the human being is deeply connected with our feelings. Our sympathies and antipathies, participation in the destinies and the existence of other beings, pity, and love are all like breathing processes in the psychological realm.

Venus not only affects the rhythmic and feeling spheres, but also works in the organism of the senses and the head. There too, we can speak of a breathing process by which the impressions of the external world are flowing into the human being and bring about reactions. Our individual connections with the world through the channels of our senses are indicated in the movement of Venus during the time of gestation. Again, we ought to say that this is only a reflection of the preparations that we make, while in the sphere of Venus (M-Mercury), for the use of our senses on the Earth.

A healthy breathing in this sphere of our organism creates the inclination to perceive the beauty of the world in numberless manifestations. Therefore Venus is deeply associated with the arts, especially with the inner experience and appreciation of artistic creation and activity. It has a healing influence on the head organization, which is inclined to register only the impressions coming from the external world. Altogether, Venus (M-Mercury) can establish a healing and restoring capacity. The breathing, the constant rhythmic exchange which it enacts in the organism, works against stagnation and calcification.

We can also speak of a breathing process through the limb system, but it is more deeply veiled there in unconsciousness. This side of Venus concerns our connection with another human being, with the partner in life, with the family, even with the community or nation into which one is born. All of these connections, of course, are rooted in previous incarnations, but the capacity to connect with another human being, although we may not be conscious of the spiritual background, is the heritage from the Venus sphere. It is important to know, in this connection, that the spiritual guides of nations, the Folk spirits, are of the rank of the Archangels, whose field of activity is in this planetary sphere.

Within the compass of this region, we have a connection with all the kingdoms of nature. This, too, is certainly a mysterious relationship. Earlier we pointed out that we could not exist as we do if these creatures in nature, during long bygone ages, had not taken on the characteristics and tendencies which would have bound us too strongly to matter. Humanity is certainly indebted to them. This relationship is also evident with regard to the food that we take from nature.

This leads to another connection of the human being with Venus. Through our individual relationship to the world, we are certainly always heaping debts on our soul. There is no doubt, even in the best case, we do not and cannot establish that loving connection with all the beings of the world which we feel is expected from us. We often injure, or even destroy that which enters our compass of experience. There are innumerable degrees of denying the attitude of universal love, which a true Christianity expects. We sometimes cannot help but increase the burden of our debts for the sake of self-preservation.

There is, however, no escape from these debts. In ever repeated earthly lives we are confronted with the balance sheet of our past debts. There the spiritual beings of the sphere of Venus (M-Mercury) come to our rescue. They make it possible to repay our debts by arranging for us to meet our opponents from former existences again and again, though under changed conditions, until the cultivation of our feelings elevates these relationships to a healthy level. What they enact in our lives is not punishment but the opportunity to raise ourselves to higher stages of spiritual kindness and understanding.

Thus it may become apparent that the highest realization of the impact of Venus for us is the faculty of inspiration, as spiritual science understands it. This realization can only happen as our free moral deed. It is a kind of breathing on a higher spiritual level, an inhalation of something which is greater than we are. Only through true inspiration can we find the right understanding of another being. Thus the path is paved to the right moral deed.

Earlier we described Venus (M-Mercury) as an inversion of the sphere of Jupiter. Jupiter is the abode of spiritual hierarchies who already prepare the future incarnation of the Earth, which will come after the decline of the present cosmos. In that future cosmos, we will attain a higher degree of consciousness, higher capacities, etc. In order to prepare for that stage, we must now learn to make the innate capacity of thinking our own property and responsibility. The gift of the capacity of thinking is received through the agency of Jupiter. On Earth we must “invert” it, evolved it into self-realization, and the Venus (M-Mercury) beings are standing by to help in this task. Therefore, Venus is an inversion of Jupiter.

The Moon

We pointed out earlier how the Moon-Earth, which separated from the Sun, began to move on its own path below the outer rim of the sphere of Mars (see Fig. 11). It formed something similar to an inner or lower ceiling of Mars, according to the Copernican picture. Thus it was in the direct stream of cosmic substance coming from Mars.

We can imagine that this fact accounts for the conditions on the Moon-Earth, which we briefly sketched in the chapter about the inferior planets. The archetypes of physical formations were drawn too strongly and too directly into the materializing vortex of our planet and contributed toward the hardening and coarsening of which we spoke.

As soon as the Moon separated from the Earth and began to move on its orbit around the Earth, it acted like a shield or sieve against the influx from the cosmos. On the basis of this and other similar ideas, even those strange crater-like formations on the face of the Moon can be explained. Experiments have shown that powder dropped from a certain height onto a surface of plaster of Paris, or ash-like matter, creates exactly the same kind of craters that appear on the Moon. We can thus imagine that the cosmic cinder, which the Moon is sometimes called, acted as a focus of attraction for cosmic substance and shielded the Earth from its direct impact.

The sphere of the Moon, not the body that we see in the sky, became the field of activity of the Angels. We will therefore try, as we did before, to find the key for an understanding of the influence of the Moon by recapitulating the biography of this Angel hierarchy.

The Angels achieved their equivalent of human self-consciousness during Ancient Moon. They accomplished this step of their evolution in close connection with the development of the Moon Beings. The senses and the potential nervous system, which human beings were unable to use consciously, were the means by which the Angels progressed toward their human stage.

They accompanied the Moon Beings during the alternating rhythms of their Moon and Sun existence, of which we spoke in Part Two. Already then, they acted as guardian angels of humanity, not of a single Moon Beings but of whole groups. Thus the Angels led humans into the Sun realm when their Moon existence drew to a close and helped them to rejuvenate their higher principles in the harmonies of the Sun cosmos. Then the Angels guided the humans back to the Moon, to the physical kernel of their external existence, which blossomed forth again and became a perfect image of their astral body. This astral body had been filled with new vigor in the Sun realm. The Angels administered this kind of “reproduction”, for humanity had not yet reached the stage of self-realization.

These facts are a key to the understanding of the working of the Earth-Moon. Its impact appears in all three spheres of the bodily organization. In the head sphere, it is closely connected with the processes that weave between our perception and conception. We can understand that this is a kind of transformed reproductive activity, which “reproduces” the pictures of external objects in the mind. One’s capacity for ideation is expressed by the position of the Moon at the time of incarnation. It is a reflection of the experiences that were gathered during our sojourn in that sphere. Many phenomena in our psychological make-up can thereby be explained.

However, it is not in our human destiny to be compelled to live only on what was once acquired in the sphere of the Moon. We can and we ever are, called upon to increase the gifts received. Thus, we can cultivate our power of ideation by inner discipline of thinking and develop that capacity which occultism calls genuine imagination. It is the transformation of otherwise abstract thought into “picture consciousness”. Our dreams transform external or physiological happenings into arbitrary pictures that are, however, beyond the control of logical thinking and, therefore, usually distorted. Exact imagination, of which occult science speaks, is similar to “symbolizing” yet with a higher consciousness under full control of the ego.

The Moon forces are also at work in the rhythmic or middle organization. There they are active in the organs, forming them plastically, as it were, from within. This sphere is also connected with feeling, and therefore the Moon is manifest in some of the rhythms of the feeling life, which can easily be observed.

We know that the soul life is passing through rhythms of greater or less activity. At certain times we feel more inclined to an active attitude. At other times we may be more in a passive and receptive mood. Especially in artistic and literary work, where we must depend on our individual initiative without being pushed by external routine, we can well observe these rhythms of soul mood. A close examination will reveal that they are connected with the phases of the Moon.

In the course of one month, the Moon changes from Full Moon to New Moon and back to Full Moon. At the time of Full Moon, it stands between the orbits of the Earth and of Mars, opposite the Sun (Fig. 11). It is therefore exposed to the full impact of the stream of cosmic substance entering through the sphere of Mars (Fig. 12). During such a Full Moon period, we are more inspired to activity by unconscious notions, which come from the sphere of the Moon penetrating the Earth. In the case of a New Moon, it stands between the Earth and the Sun. It is then rather turned away from the cosmic stream and more associated with the tendency of the Sun to let existence be realized on the level of the “I” (the Sun as the “I” in the cosmos). As far as these events play into our feeling life, the more we are inclined to withdraw into our inner being and appear outwardly in a passive mood. The more we achieve conscious control of our whole being, the more we become masters of these rhythms and phases of the Moon, and we can use them positively without feeling compelled. It is altogether the task of present and future humanity to consciously shape and transform the impacts that are coming from the cosmic world.

The Moon forces also work in the region of our limbs and metabolism. There they are deeply connected with reproductive processes. We know the monthly rhythms of the female organism, though they are emancipated from the factual phases of the Moon. The Moon is also connected with the secrets of embryonic development. This was known since the earliest times as the so-called Hermetic Rule of ancient Egyptian tradition. Extensive researches in this direction have revealed a close relationship between the processes of gestation, the creation of the vessel of our destiny, and the rhythms of the Moon during that time. We hope to publish some results of our historic investigations on a later occasion.

The sphere of the Moon is an inversion of the sphere of Mars. In Mars the spiritual prototypes exist of physical formations, which the Moon “inverts” into earthly matter. These processes, which are partly still deeply veiled and that are also, to a certain extent, connected with the human metabolism, go hand in hand with the phases of the Moon. Generally speaking, we can well say that the celestial companion of the Earth provides the “daily bread”, the material foundation of all creatures existing on our planet.

These cosmic forces, however, not only prepare this bread, they also take it away. Therefore, the Moon is associated, for instance, with the death experience of human beings. We have pointed out that the four lower regions of Soul land, through which the human being passes after death, are identical with the sphere of the Moon (Fig. 7). In those regions of “burning desires”, etc., the soul is obliged to abandon its affinities to the material world. These experiences can be extremely painful, but are necessary and healthy for the soul. We can find vivid descriptions in Greek mythology of the soul in this sphere; for instance, we hear of a man standing in a stream and above him a laden fruit tree. Yet he suffers thirst and hunger because whenever he attempts to grasp the fruit above him, it is torn away by the wind, and as soon as he bends down to quench his thirst the water disappears.

The spiritual beings dwelling in the sphere of the Moon offer us the opportunity to descend into material existence in order to attain object-consciousness, the great goal of Earth evolution. However, they also take away material corporeality, lest we lose our eternal soul in the darkness of material limitations.