Theosophy and Rosicrucianism
GA 100
24 June 1907, Kassel
Translator Unknown
IX. The Earth's Passage Through Its Former Planetary Conditions
In continuation of yesterday's sketch on the planetary evolution, let us now add some further explanations. We have already explained that our earth once passed through a Saturn, a Sun and a Moon condition. Let me now describe to you these successive states of existence, as they are usually described in occultism. When speaking of the soul's development along the path of knowledge, we shall be able to understand many things which can now only be advanced hypothetically.
If we consider the Saturn state of existence, that condition of our earth lying millions and millions of years before the present time, we find that it presented an aspect greatly differing from the one which is taken for granted through our present physical conditions. Above all, we should bear in mind that man, the most perfect being we know, has passed through the longest course of development. You will therefore hear the description of a course of development which greatly deviates from the Haeckel-Darwin theory of evolution, but the advantages of this purely materialistic theory may be gathered from my book, “Haeckel, the Riddles of the World and Theosophy”.
The first thing to be grasped is that the most perfect beings are those who passed through the longest course of development, and the most perfect being of all is man, especially the physical body of man. All other beings in our environment have not attained to the perfection of man's physical body, which has taken longer than all others for its development. If we look back through spiritual vision, we therefore find that the first foundation of man's physical body was laid upon Saturn. The whole universe, with all the beings and objects which it contained, influenced the first state of the earth's existence. The present human beings on our planet still possess all the organs which were formed upon Saturn and they are the most perfect parts of man's physical body, namely, the sense-organs. These apparatuses can be grasped from a purely physical aspect and their first foundation was then laid. Of course, you must not think that the eye existed on Saturn in the same form in which it exists to-day. But the first foundation of the eye, the ear, of every sense-organ and of all the other purely physical apparatuses of the human being appeared upon Saturn. The only activities existing upon Saturn which may still be found to-day, are those which pertain to the mineral kingdom. (Crystallizations, etc.)
Upon Saturn, the human being existed in the form which was the first foundation of his physical body; everything, else, the blood, the tissues, etc. did not then exist. Physical apparatuses constituted the first basis of man's physical body. Even as the emerald, the mica, etc, arise through physical laws and develop in the form of cubes, hexahedrons, etc, so at that time forms developed which resembled apparatuses and which existed upon Saturn in the same way in which crystals now exist upon the earth. The activity of Saturn's surface essentially consisted in a kind of reflection which went out into the universal space. The Beings in Saturn's environment who were scattered in the universal spaces sent down their influences. Something which we may call the “cosmic aroma” was also then strongly developed. Only a few phenomena of the present day may give you a feeling for what took place upon Saturn: for example, when you hear an echo in Nature, the sound of this echo can convey to you something which went streaming out of Saturn as the result of the impressions which it received. These conglomerations of forces resembling apparatuses which threw back pictures in the universal space, formed the first foundation of that which developed later on as the eye. In a similar way we might follow the development of everything else. What you now have within your body, was once upon Saturn a physical kingdom, which sent out into the world's spaces the reflection of the whole cosmos in a manifold manner.
Myths and legends preserved this knowledge far more clearly than one generally supposes. The Greek myth of Chronos and Rhea, proceeding from the Eleusinian Mysteries preserved, for example such a truth; it contains however, a great displacement of facts due to the way in which the Greeks viewed the great cosmic connections. This myth tells us that Chronos sent down his rays and that these rays then returned to him in many forms: this explains the picture of Chronos devouring his children.
Now you must not think that the Saturn mass was as firm and solid as the physical bodies of to-day; even water and air do not give you an idea of Saturn's fundamental substance. When speaking of bodies in occultism, we speak of solid, liquid and gaseous bodies. And if we speak of the elements in the old manner, they correspond to that which modern chemistry designates as the “aggregate conditions” of matter, for you must not think that the men of olden times, when speaking of the “elements” meant the same thing as we do. Then there is a higher “aggregate state”, designated in ancient occultism as “fire”; a better meaning is however conveyed by calling it “heat”. Even physics will be obliged to recognise that what is designated as heat, may be compared with a kind of fourth aggregate state, with another kind of substance differing from air and water. The Saturn mass was not even condensed to the state of air it consisted of purified heat, and its activity resembled that of the heat your blood, for it was connected with inner life-processes. The physical processes upon Saturn were real life-processes. Saturn consisted of heat-substance, of an immensely fine volume which may be designated as neutral, if compared with our present substances.
If we wish to study the Beings who inhabited Saturn, we must realise that the Beings whom we now see moving about upon the earth, then possessed only the first beginning of a physical body; they were embodied in heat-substance, and their activity consisted in a current of heat which moved about. These currents constituted the deeds of the Beings who filled Saturn with life. Even as to-day you are able to make a table, so these Saturn-beings did their work by producing currents of heat. Nothing else could be observed of these Beings. A greeting exchanged upon Saturn was as if two currents of heat moved to and fro, exchanging their forces.
The Beings who passed through the human stage upon Saturn did not possess a physical body as their lowest member, for they did not descend into matter so deeply as to require a physical body. Their lowest member was the Ego, even as to-day our lowest member is the physical body; then came their Sprit-Self or Manas, their Life-Spirit or Buddhi, then Spirit-Man or Atma. In addition they developed an eighth, ninth and tenth members, which must be included.
Theosophical literature calls these members which the human being has not yet developed, the “Three Logoi”; in Christianity they are called the Holy Spirit, the Son or the Word, and the Father. We may therefore say: Even as the human beings now consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man, so these Beings living upon Saturn, who in regard to their connection with the earth may be compared with the present human beings, consisted of Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man; of the Holy Ghost, the Son or Word, and the Father. The theosophical terminology designates them as “asuras”. They are the Beings who from the very beginning implanted into the physical foundation of man's body the feeling of independence, of Ego-consciousness, and of Ego-feeling. You could not use your eye in the service of the Ego had your eye's foundation not been prepared at that time, so that now you are enabled to place your eye at the service of the Ego. These members were therefore prepared by the Spirits of the Ego, also
named the Spirits of Egoism. They gave us the wisest thing of all, when developed in the right way. But everything of the highest nature becomes perverted into its opposite if it is not developed in the right way, because then it exercises the most harmful and destructive influence. Man could never reach that high stage which we designate as human dignity, had not these Spirits of Egoism implanted in him the Ego-feeling. There have always been Beings who followed an evil Course, and consequently we must say: The Beings who implanted the Ego into man and who are now upon a stage of development greatly surpassing the human one, those Beings to whom we may look up as the highest of all, gave their Ego as an offering of self-renunciation and sacrifice; but the others followed the development of their Ego in a selfish manner.
In striving after freedom and human dignity we bear within us the influences of the Spirits of the Ego who followed the good path, and we bear within us the seed of evil, because the influence of the Beings who fell away continued to be active. This contrast has always been felt. Christianity itself makes a distinction between God the Father, whom it considers as the most highly developed Spirit of Saturn, and his opponent, the Spirit of all the evil Egos and of everything which is radically immoral, the Spirit who fell away upon the ancient Saturn. These are the two representatives of Saturn.
Even as after death we encounter other forms of existence, so a cosmic body, such as Saturn, passes through a kind of intermediate state, a kind of sleep-condition, before it enters into a new condition; it passes through a “pralaya” in contrast to a “manvantara”, so that we have a kind of resting, passive condition of the planet, between the Saturn and the Sun state of existence. The whole planet then emerges in a new form from its sleeping state, which is, however, a spiritual one.
Saturn thus emerged as the Sun, and a considerable transformation had taken place. Upon the Sun a great number of the germs which had already developed upon Saturn and which are still developing within us to-day, were permeated by an etheric body. During such a planetary transition something evolves which may be compared with the fruit of a plant which we lay in the earth; it decays, but it forms the foundation of a new plant Thus everything which developed upon Saturn arose again upon the Sun with a new foundation and it became permeated with an etheric body.
There were also other beings who had remained behind upon the mineral-physical stage, and they can be compared with the present mineral kingdom. The Sun absorbed them as a kind of subordinate kingdom of Nature, but at the same time another kingdom was raised to the stage of plant-man.
You obtain a right conception of the Sun-atmosphere if you imagine a thick, chemical gas, no longer representing a merely reflecting body, but one which absorbed everything which, came raying towards it, and after having transformed it, reverberated it in the same way in which plants now reverberate colours. The plant forms its green colour and other substances and returns them to the cosmic spaces. That which lived upon the ancient Sun cannot be compared with an echo, nor with a reflected image, as in the case of Saturn, in regard to the beings embodied upon the Sun, we come across a phenomena which can only be compared with a kind of Fata Morgana, with atmospheric phenomena resembling coloured pictures. Such phenomena which can only be perceived to-day in certain regions of our globe, can give you an idea of how these plant-bodies could be perceived. You must imagine that your bodies revealed certain Fata Morgana-like processes, through which your present bodies could pass as if through air. You were then as transparent as a Fata Morgana—but this phenomenon did not only consist of light, but also of tones and smells whirring through the gas- sphere of the Sun.
Whereas the beings living upon the Sun could shine like the fixed stars of to-day, the ancient Saturn kingdom of the beings who had remained behind, could be observed like a dark mass, like dark forms against the light, like obtuse. caverns in the body of the Sun, which disturbed its harmony. Particularly in regard to the “cosmic aroma” these retarded beings mixed into it sensations which provoked all kinds of evil smells. Myths have retained a recollection of this, for they relate that the Devil leaves behind an evil smell. As it progressed, the Sun really left behind a dark part, and the sun-spots which are visible now, are the remnants of the ancient Saturn kingdom which once existed upon the Sun. Hypothetically these spots should be explained exactly as we explain them now; for all these explanations are valid.
In a short sketch you thus have the earth's sun-existence painted, as it were, from its material aspect. Let us now see who were the Beings who attained the human stage upon the Sun. They would have to be described as follows: Their lowest body is the astral body, then comes the Ego, the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, the Spirit-Man or Atma, then the Holy Ghost in the Christian meaning, and finally the Son or the Word. They did not have the Father, for this member was only developed during the Saturn era. These Saturn Spirits meanwhile rose to a still higher stage, and now they stand far above the human being.
The Leader of the Sun Spirits, in so far as He exercised the highest, influence upon the earth, the representative of the Spirits whose highest member was the Son or the Word, is the Christ, in the esoteric meaning of Christianity. He is the real regent of the earth, in so far as the earth is based upon the Sun state of existence. Upon the Sun, Christ would not yet have been called by that name. The old form of Christianity always taught this truth, and the difference between genuine Christianity and, the exoteric form of Christianity, which is in so many cases based upon misunderstandings, is that the older form of Christianity exerted all its thinking power and applied every conception in order to understand that high Being Who took on human shape in Jesus of Nazareth. The ancient form of Christianity wished to gain a conception of what lay at the foundation of this mystery, and no wisdom was too high for it, or too complicated: It explained the Being of Christ within Jesus of Nazareth in accordance with this truth. Many a passage in the Gospel of St. John can only be understood if you grasp it from this aspect. It suffices to draw attention to one point: If you take the words, “I am the Light of the World” literally, these imply that the Christ is the great Sun Hero, and that the Light which belongs to the Sun constitutes His being. We designate the whole hosts of Spirits whose Leader is the Christ as the “Fire Spirits” and we say: The Asuras or the Ego Spirits reached the human stage during the Saturn era. During the Sun existence the Fire Spirits or the Logoi, whose highest representative is named the Logos or the Word, reached this stage. For this very reason, Christ is named the “Word” that existed in “the beginning”, and the “beginning” designates in the Bible a definite point of departure in the cosmic evolution.
Again we have an intermediate condition, a kind of sleeping condition for the whole cosmic body, and then it begins to shine forth again as the ancient Moon.
You must imagine that in the beginning the present Earth and the present Moon formed one body with the Sun. Only when the Sun began to shine forth again, one part of the Beings separated from it with their own environment, so that two celestial bodies arose. One of these bodies, the Sun, begins to develop into a fixed star, and the body which separates from it begins to circle around it. The ancient Sun thus divided itself into two parts; the more highly developed substance remained behind upon the Sun, and the less perfect substance was eliminated. Consequently, that which once pursued the same course, because there was only one body, now followed two separate course: the Sun path and the Moon path. The Sun path was the one which developed upon the Sun-body, whereas the Moon developed its own world. You could reconstruct the ancient Moon by mixing together the present earth and the present Moon; this would enable you to form a conception of the way in which the ancient Moon was constituted. Both physically and spiritually the present Moon is far below the Earth in regard to its quality, and the Earth separated from the Moon just because it needed better conditions of life for Beings who lived upon it. The Earth developed beyond the stage it had reached during the Moon existence; but its best part remained behind upon the Sun.
What was the aspect of things upon the ancient Moon? The Beings who had passed through a preparatory stage upon Saturn by developing the physical foundation of the sense-organs, transformed these organs upon the Sun by permeating them with a etheric body; the sense organs thus became centralised, and the first basis of the organs of growth reaching as far as the glands could unfold upon the ancient Sun under the influence of the etheric body; this was a final product of the Sun existence.
Upon the Moon, the astral body was added in a similar manner. Everything astral first existed in the surroundings; the Fire Spirits had an astral body as their lowest member. The Beings upon the Sun resembled plants; for instance, they could not move from their fixed places. Although the whole body of the Sun was gaseous, you must imagine air-strata of greater density which were the bodies of these human plants. But now the astral body of man was added; this gave rise to the first foundation of a nervous system. The kingdom which had reached the plant stage of development upon the Sun, passed over to the animal stage, to a stage resembling that of animals. The physical ancestors of man upon the Moon thus possessed three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body, yet they greatly surpassed the most highly developed apes of our planet; they were human animals which no biology can describe, an intermediate kingdom between man and animal. Our present vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms only developed later, but even as there were human animals; so we must admit the existence of an intermediate kingdom between plant and animal; plants with a kind of sentient capacity, plants which literally squeaked if one touched them. These plant-animals could never have grown upon a mineral soil, such as the present soil of the Earth; in fact, this mineral soil did not exist upon the Moon. Its mass did not consist of the present rocky substances, not even of loose soil. Comparatively speaking, the Moon's foundation consisted of a mass resembling a mash of cooked spinach or salad, and in it a kind of mineral plant, The whole foundation of the Moon was therefore of vegetable nature. A peat bed of to-day would resemble the kingdom which existed at that time as an intermediate kingdom between our plants and minerals. There were no rocks, and anyone walking over the ground would have walked over such a peaty ground or vegetable foundation, and analogously you may think of rocks in the form of woodened portions within this mass.
The plant-animals grew out of this whole foundation, and above them, in the Moon's environment which may be designated as “fire-air”, moved those beings who were man-animals. Imagine the whole atmosphere filled with saltpeter, carbon and sulphur gases; the Moon-men lived in this fiery air which you would thus obtain. Occultists always knew of the existence of this fire-air, and under older conditions of the Earth it was even possible to produce this fire-air artificially. This is only possible to-day in a very restricted circle, but this knowledge has been preserved in genuine alchemy. Consequently, if you read in Goethe's “Faust”, “Let me produce a little fire-air”, this touches the depths of occultism. Fire-air enwrapped; the Moon; this was its atmosphere.
We can understand this Moon-existence even better if we add another fact. Upon the Moon there was a kingdom of plant-minerals, of animal-plants growing out of this vegetable-mineral soil, and then there were the animal-men moving about upon it. But upon each stage there are beings who remain behind—you may, if you like, say that they did not “pass”. This is the case not only at school, but also in the great course of development, where a pupil may have to repeat a class. These beings who did not “pass”, appear in future stages of development in very peculiar conditions. Such stragglers of the plant-minerals who did not “pass” still exist in parasites, for instance in the mistle-toe. It cannot grow upon mineral soil, because it was accustomed to grow upon a vegetable-mineral soil. It proves a fact resembling that of a pupil who did not move on to a higher form; except that the case of the beings who remain behind in the cosmic development is far worse. Particularly in the North we come across a myth which describes this; you are all acquainted with the northern myth of Baldur and his death through Loki.
The Gods were frolicking about in the Aesir's home and in there games they hurled about all kinds of objects. Baldur had just before had dreams foreboding his early death, and the Gods were therefore afraid to lose him. The Mother of the Gods had taken an oath from all the living and inanimate beings and they all had all promised that they would never hurt Baldur, and so the Gods enjoyed the game of throwing all manner of weapons against Baldur. Loki, the opponent of the Gods, had discovered that one being, who was considered to be harmless, had not made any promise, and this was the mistle-toe, which lay in hiding somewhere in the distance. Loki obtained the mistle-toe, gave it to the blind god Hodur, who threw it at Baldur: the mistle-toe wounded Baldur, for it had not sworn the oath, and Baldur died.
This myth indicates that that which is invulnerable upon the Earth can only suffer harm through that which has remained behind from another existence as something evil. In the mistle-toe people saw something which had entered the present state of existence from an earlier one. All the beings now living upon the earth can only suffer harm through that which has remained behind from an earlier one. All the beings now living upon the Earth are connected with Baldur. But it was otherwise upon the Moon; consequently that being which had remained behind from the Moon was able to kill Baldur. All the various customs connected with the mistle-toe arise out of this foundation.
We should also consider the Moon existence from another aspect, from the Spiritual one. The Moon Beings who had reached the human stage must be described as beings whose lowest member was the etheric body, their second one the astral body, then the Ego, Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man or Atma, and then they also had the Holy Ghost. They no longer had the ninth member pertaining to the Fire Spirits upon the Sun. The highest of the Moon Spirits who had reached the human stage is called the “Holy Ghost” in Christian esotericism. In the early original form of Christianity, the threefold Godhead was therefore intimately connected with the evolution of the earth. The Holy Ghost is a Spirit who is above man and Who is able to inspire him in a direct way.
Thus you may see that the Moon Spirits now stand above the human being. They are also called “Lunar Pitris”, “Moon Fathers” and “Spirits of Twilight”. The whole host belonging to the Holy Ghost is called in Christian esotericism the Host of Angels. The Angels are the Spirits immediately above man, who passed through their human stage upon the ancient Moon.
The life of the animal-men and of the plant-animals upon the Moon, differed from that of the beings who developed out of them upon the Earth. The movement of the Moon, which had already severed itself from the Sun, was quite different from the movement of the present earth around the sun. The ancient Moon circled around the Sun in such a way that it always turned the same face towards it, even as the Moon to-day always shows the same side to the earth. The Moon thus turned only once around its own axis, while circling around the Sun. The Moon Beings were therefore dependent upon the Sun in quite a different way than is the case with the present earthly inhabitants. During the Moon's whole epoch of revolution around the Sun, it was always daytime on one of its sides, and a kind of night upon the other. The Moon Beings, who were already able to move about, wandered in a kind of circle around the Moon, so that they passed through one epoch in which they stood under the influence of the Moon. The time in which they stood under the Sun's influence was their time of procreation. For there was already a kind of procreation. The Moon-men could not as yet express joy and pleasure through sounds; their expressions had a more cosmic significance. The sun-epoch was the time of ardour and passion, and it was connected with a great screaming on the part of the Moon Beings, This exists to-day in the animal kingdom.
Many other things have remained from that time. You know how one tries to investigate the true reason for the birds migration, why they circle around the globe in a certain manner. Many things which are mysteriously concealed to-day, can be understood if the whole course of earthly evolution is borne in mind. There was a time when the lunar beings could only procreate when they wandered towards the Sun; this may be called their epoch of sexual life. General processes of lunar life expressed themselves in sounds at certain seasons of the and at other times, the beings upon the Moon were dumb.
We have thus learned to know time earth' s passage through the three preceding conditions of its existence: that of Saturn, of the Moon and of the Sun.
Neunter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Wir werden heute, in der Ausführung der gestern über die Planetenentwickelung gegebene Skizze, weitere Betrachtungen anstellen. Gesagt wurde, daß unsere Erde vorher einen Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenzustand durchgemacht hat. Heute möchte ich Ihnen, so wie es im Okkultismus üblich ist, diese aufeinanderfolgenden Zustände beschreiben. Sie werden dann, wenn wir über die Entwickelung der Seele auf dem Erkenntnispfad sprechen, von manchem, was heute hypothetisch hingestellt wird, sehen, wie es gemeint ist. Wenn wir nun ohne weiteres eingehen auf den Saturnzustand, also jenen Millionen und Millionen Jahre vor unserer Zeit liegenden Zustand unserer Erde, so nimmt sich dieser ganz anders aus, als nach unseren heutigen physikalischen Verhältnissen angenommen wird. Vor allem müssen wir uns klar sein, daß das vollkommenste Wesen, das wir kennen, der Mensch selbst, die längste Reihe der Entwickelung hinter sich hat. Sie werden also eine Entwickelungsgeschichte hören, von der man sagen könnte, sie weicht sehr weit ab von der Haeckel-Darwinschen Entwickelungsgeschichte. Die Vorzüge vor dieser rein materialistischen Theorie werden Sie ja in meinem Buche ersehen.
[ 2 ] Zunächst handelt es sich darum, zu verstehen, daß das Vollkommenste die längste Entwickelung hinter sich hat. Das vollkommenste Wesen ist nun der Mensch, und zunächst der physische Menschenleib. Alle Wesen, die sonst um uns herum sind, sind unvollkommener als der physische Menschenleib, der die längste Zeit brauchte, um sich zu entwickeln. Daher finden wir, wenn wir geistig schauend zurückblicken, die ersten Anlagen dazu schon im Saturnzustand vorhanden. Der ganze Weltenraum mit allen Wesen und Dingen, die darinnen waren, haben auf den ersten Zustand der Erde gewirkt. Sie haben noch alle die Organe in sich, die damals gebildet worden sind als das Vollkommenste unseres physischen Körpers; das sind die Sinnesorgane, die Apparate, die man rein physikalisch begreifen kann, die zunächst damals in der Anlage entstanden sind. Zwar dürfen Sie sich nicht vorstellen, daß das Auge schon damals so vorhanden war, wie es heute ist. Aber die erste Anlage zum Auge, zum Ohr, zu allen Sinnesorganen und zu allen sonst rein physikalischen Apparaten am Menschen ist auf dem Saturn entstanden. Nur jene Wirkungen gab es auf dem Saturn, die heute noch in dem Mineralreich herauskommen. DerMensch war damals in der ersten Anlage seines physischen Leibes vorhanden; alles andere, Blut, Gewebe und so weiter war nicht da. Als physikalische Apparate waren die ersten Anlagen zum Menschenleib vorhanden. Wie der Smaragd, Glimmer und so weiter durch physikalische Gesetze entstehen und sich ausbilden als Würfel, Hexaeder und so weiter, so bildeten sich apparatartige Gestalten aus, die so auf dem Saturnkörper vorhanden waren wie heute die Kristalle im Erdkörper. Und die Wirkungsweise der Saturnoberfläche war wesentlich die einer Art Spiegelung in den Weltenraum hinein. Die Wesen, die den Saturn umgaben, die im Weltenraum zerstreut sind, warfen ihre Wirkungen hinunter. Namentlich war damals auch stark ausgebildet, was man das Weltenaroma nennt. Ein Gefühl für das, was damals auf dem Saturn geschah, können Sie heute nur noch bei einigen Erscheinungen bekommen: wenn Sie in der Natur draußen ein Echo hören, würden Sie in dem Ton des Echos etwas haben, was auf dem Saturn hinausgeströmt wurde von den Eindrücken her, die auf ihn gewirkt hatten. Diese Apparate, die solche Bilder zurückwarfen in den Weltenraum, sind die erste Anlage zu dem, was sich später zum Beispiel als Auge ausgebildet hat. Und so könnten wir alles einzelne verfolgen. Was Sie heute im Leibe tragen, war damals ein physisches Reich des Saturn, das in mannigfaltiger Weise das ganze Weltbild zurückwarf in den Raum.
[ 3 ] Mythen und Sagen haben diese Erscheinung viel klarer erhalten, als man ahnt. So hat zum Beispiel die griechische Mythe, die noch entlehnt ist aus den Eleusinischen Mysterien, etwas bewahrt in dem Bilde des Zusammenwirkens von Kronos und Rhea, wobei nur eine große Verschiebung der Tatsachen vorgekommen ist durch die Art,wie damals die Weltenzusammenhänge gedacht waren. Es wird uns da gesagt, daß Kronos seinen Strahl hinunterwirft und er ihm in der mannigfaltigsten Weise wieder zurückkommt; daher jenes Bild: er verschlingt seine Kinder.
[ 4 ] Nun müssen Sie sich nicht vorstellen, daß die Saturnmasse so etwas Festes war wie die heutigen physischen Körper; selbst wenn Sie Wasser oder Luft nähmen, würden Sie noch keine Vorstellung bekommen von der Grundsubstanz des Saturn. Im Okkultismus redet man, wenn man von den Körpern redet, von den festen, den wasserförmigen, den luftförmigen Körpern. Wenn man im alten Stile von Elementen spricht, so entsprechen diese dem, was man heute in der Chemie Aggregatzustände nennt; Sie müssen nicht glauben, daß die Alten mit Elementen dasselbe gemeint haben wie wir. Dann aber gibt es noch einen höheren Aggregatzustand, den man im alten Okkultismus das «Feuer» nannte; man würde den Sinn besser treffen mit «Wärme». Auch die Physik wird gedrängt werden, anzuerkennen, daß das, was man Wärme nennt, sich wirklich vergleichen läßt mit einer Art vierten Aggregatzustands, einer andern Art Materie als Luft und Wasser. Also noch nicht einmal zur Luft verdichtet war die Saturnmasse; sie war geläuterte Wärme. Sie wirkte ähnlich wie heute die Wärme in Ihrem Blute wirkt, und sie war verknüpft mit inneren Lebensvorgängen, denn diese physikalischen Vorgänge waren wirkliche Lebensvorgänge. Aus Wärmestoff bestand der Saturn, eine ungeheuer feine Masse, die in bezug auf unsere Stoffe neutral genannt werden könnte.
[ 5 ] Wenn wir nun die Wesen betrachten wollen, die den Saturn bewohnten, müssen wir uns erstens klar sein, daß das, was heute auf der Erde herumwandelt, dort selbst die erste Anlage zum physischen Leibe war; ein Ich oder Astralleib war nicht darinnen. Andere Wesen aber, die heute viel höher sind als der Mensch, belebten den Saturn, nur gingen sie dort auch nicht in physischen Leibern herum: sie waren im Wärmestoff verkörpert, und sie wirkten wie ein Wärmestrom, der sich dahinbewegte. Solche Wärmeströmungen bildeten die Taten der Wesen, die den Saturn belebten. Wie Sie heute einen Tisch formen, so taten diese Wesen ihre Arbeit, indem sie Wärmeströmungen verursachten. Sonst war nichts von ihnen zu bemerken. Wie wenn sich zwei Wärmeströmungen hin und her bewegten und sich gegenseitig austauschten, so begrüßte man sich sozusagen auf dem Saturn. Die Wesen, die auf dem Saturn ihre Menschheitsstufe durchmachten, hatten nicht einen physischen Leib als ihr niederstes Glied; sie stiegen nicht so weit in die Materie hinab, daß sie einen physischen Leib nötig gehabt hätten. Ihr niederstes Glied war das Ich, wie Sie heute als niederstes Glied den physischen Leib haben; dann kam ihr Geistselbst oder Manas, ihr Lebensgeist oder Buddhi, der Geistesmensch oder Atma. Aber dafür hatten sie noch ein achtes, neuntes und zehntes Glied entwickelt, die wir also bei ihnen mit aufzählen müssen.
[ 6 ] Die theosophische Literatur nennt diese Glieder, die der Mensch heute noch nicht entwickelt, die «drei Logoi»; im Christentum heißen sie: der Heilige Geist, der Sohn oder das Wort, und der Vater. Also kann man sagen: Wie der Mensch heute aus physischem Leib, Äther-, Astralleib und Ich, Geistselbst, Lebensgeist und Geistesmensch besteht, so bestanden diese Wesen, die den Saturn bewohnten, die wir mit dem heutigen Erdenmenschen in seinem Verhältnis zur Erde vergleichen können, aus dem Ich, Geistselbst, Lebensgeist, Geistesmensch, dem Heiligen Geist, dem Wort oder dem Sohn, und dem Vater. Die theosophische Sprache nennt sie «Asuras». Sie sind diejenigen, die von Anfang an dieser physischen Anlage des Menschenleibes eingepflanzt haben die Selbständigkeit, das Ich-Bewußtsein und Ich-Gefühl. Sie könnten Ihr Auge gar nicht im Dienste des Ich verwenden, wenn Ihre Anlage damals nicht schon so vorbereitet worden wäre, daß Sie sie in den Dienst des Ich stellen konnten. So sind diese Glieder vorbereitet worden durch die Geister des Ich — auch die Geister des Egoismus genannt. Sie haben uns gegeben, was das Weiseste ist, wenn es richtig ausgebildet wird. Aber alles Höchste wird in sein Gegenteil verkehrt, wirkt am schädlichsten und verderblichsten, wenn es nicht richtig ausgebildet wird. Niemals könnte der Mensch jene hohe Stufe erreichen, die wir als die selbständige Menschenwürde bezeichnen, wenn nicht diese Geister ihm das Ich-Gefühl eingepflanzt hätten. Immer hat es auch Wesen gegeben, welche die böse Bahn eingeschlagen haben. Daher muß gesagt werden: Diese Wesenheiten, welche die Einpflanzer der Ichheit waren, die heute weit über den Menschen erhaben sind, zu denen wir aufschauen als zu den erhabensten, die es geben kann, sie haben die Ichheit in den Dienst der Selbstverleugnung, des Opfers gestellt; die andern haben ihre Ichheit selbstsüchtig weiterverfolgt.
[ 7 ] Wir tragen in uns die Wirkungen jener Geister des Ich, die den guten Weg eingeschlagen haben, in dem Streben nach Freiheit und Menschenwürde, und wir tragen den Keim des Bösen in uns, weil fortgewirkt haben die damals abgefallenen Wesenheiten. Diesen Gegensatz hat man immer empfunden. Das Christentum selbst unterscheidet zwischen dem Vatergott, den das Christentum ansieht als den höchstgestiegenen Geist des Saturn, und seinem Widersacher, dem Geist aller bösen Iche und alles radikal Unmoralischen, der damals auf dem Saturn abgefallen ist. Das sind die beiden Repräsentanten des Saturn.
[ 8 ] Geradeso wie Sie nach dem Tode andere Daseinsformen antreffen, so geht ein solcher Weltenkörper, bevor er in einen neuen Zustand hineinkommt, eine Art Zwischenzustand, eine Art Schlafzustand durch, ein Pralaya, im Gegensatze zu einem Manvantara, so daß zwischen dem Saturn und dem Sonnenzustand eine Art Ruhe, Latenz des Planeten liegt. Dann tritt aus diesem Schlafzustand, der aber ein geistiger Zustand ist und nicht etwa ein Ruhezustand, der ganze Planet in einer neuen Form wieder heraus. Der Saturn kam also als Sonne wieder heraus. Eine beträchtliche Veränderung vollzog sich nun. Eine große Anzahl derjenigen Anlagen, welche sich schon auf dem Saturn entwickelt haben und die heute in uns im Heranwachsen sind, wurden jetzt auf der Sonne von einem Ätherleib durchdrungen. Bei einem solchen Planetenübergang geschieht etwas, was man damit vergleichen kann, daß man von einer Pflanze die Frucht nimmt und sie in den Boden legt: sie verfault, aber es bildet sich die Anlage zu einer neuen Pflanze aus. So ging alles, was auf dem Saturn sich herausgebildet hatte, als Neuanlage auf der Sonne auf und durchdrang sich mit einem Ätherleib. Nicht alles — einiges blieb zurück in der Weise, daß, was früher Anlage zu dem Menschenleib war, sich gespalten hat in zwei Reiche. Ein Teil ist aufgestiegen zu einer Art von Pflanzenmenschen; wie die Pflanze heute ihren Äther- und physischen Leib hat, so hatten die damaligen Sonnenmenschen einen physischen und ÄÄtherleib. Und auf der mineralischphysischen Stufe sind zurückgeblieben andere Wesenheiten, die sich vergleichen ließen mit dem heutigen Mineralreich. Dieses schloß die Sonne als ein untergeordnetes Naturreich in sich ein, und ein anderes hatte sie als ein Pflanzen-Menschenreich hinaufgeschoben. Eine richtige Vorstellung von der Sonnenluft bekommen Sie, wenn Sie sich ein chemisch dichtes Gas vorstellen, das nicht mehr einen bloß spiegelnden Körper vorstellt, sondern jetzt alles, was es zugestrahlt erhielt, in sich aufgenommen hat und erst nachdem es das in sich verändert hat, wieder zurückwirft, wie es heute mit der Farbe der Pflanze ist. Die Pflanze bildet ihren grünen Farbstoff und anderes aus, und gibt das, was sie ausgebildet hat, wieder an den Weltenraum zurück.
[ 9 ] Wir können das, was im Sonnenkörper lebte, nicht mehr vergleichen mit einem Echo oder Spiegelbild wie beim Saturn, sondern eine eigentümliche Erscheinung für die Wesen, die auf der Sonne verkörpert waren, tritt auf, die sich nur vergleichen läßt mit einer Art Fata Morgana, mit Luftspiegelungen, die eine Art farbiger Bilder sind. Solche Erscheinungen, die heute nur in gewissen Gegenden unserer Erdoberfläche wahrzunehmen sind, würden Ihnen versinnlichen können, wie die Pflanzenleiber damals sichtbar geworden sind. Sie müssen sich vorstellen, daß Ihre eigenen Leiber fatamorganartige Vorgänger hatten, durch die ein heutiger Körper einfach hindurchgehen kann. Sie waren so fein wie Luftspiegelungen, aber es war das nicht nur eine LichtFata Morgana, sondern zu gleicher Zeit Ton- und Geruchswirkungen, die den Sonnengasball durchschwirrten. Während nun alle Wesenheiten, die auf der Sonne waren, leuchtend waren, wie heute alles, was Fixstern ist, wirkte das alte Saturnreich derjenigen Wesenheiten, die zurückgeblieben waren, wie ein dunkler Einschluß, wie finstere Stellen dem Licht gegenüber, wie dumpfe Höhlen innerhalb des Sonnenleibes, die seine Harmonie störten. Namentlich in bezug auf das Weltenaroma mischten sich von den zurückgebliebenen Wesenheiten Empfindungen ein, die allerlei Mißgerüche verbreiteten. Das hat unsere Mythe behalten, indem sie sagt, daß der Teufel stinkt und einen bösen Geruch zurückläßt. Bei dem Fortschritt der Sonne ist wirklich auch ein dunkler Einschluß zurückgeblieben, und die heutigen Sonnenflecken sind wirklich die Nachzügler des alten Saturnreiches auf der Sonne. Deshalb sind sie aber hypothetisch genau doch so zu erklären, wie es heute geschieht; das gilt alles.
[ 10 ] So haben wir das Sonnendasein der Erde sozusagen in einer kleinen Skizze seiner materiellen Seite nach gemalt. Wir wollen nun sehen, welche Wesenheiten dazumal die Stufe der Menschen erstiegen hatten. Diese müßten wir so beschreiben, daß wir sagen: Ihr unterster Leib ist der Astralleib, dann kam ihr Ich, Geistselbst, Lebensgeist, ihr Geistesmensch oder Atma, dann im christlichen Sinne der Heilige Geist und dann der Sohn oder das Wort. Der Vater war etwas, was sie nicht hatten, was nur in der Saturnzeit ausgebildet war. Diese Geister sind inzwischen höher gestiegen und stehen heute weit über dem Menschen. Und der Anführer der Sonnengeister, insofern er auf die Erde den höchsten Einfluß ausgeübt hat, der Repräsentant dieser Geister, die als höchstes den Sohn oder das Wort hatten, ist der Christus im esoterischen Sinne des Christentums, der eigentliche Regent der Erde, insofern die Erde das Sonnendasein zur Voraussetzung hat. Nicht auf der Sonne schon würde man ihn Christus genannt haben. Im alten Christentum wurde das immer so gelehrt, und gerade der Unterschied des wirklichen Christentums von dem vielfach auf Mißverständnissen beruhenden exoterischen Christentum ist der, daß das alte Christentum alles Denken und alle Anschauungen anwenden wollte, um zu begreifen, welches jenes hohe Wesen war, das damals Menschengestalt angenommen hatte in dem Jesus von Nazareth. Was da eigentlich zugrunde lag, darüber wollte das alte Christentum eine Anschauung haben und dafür war ihm keine Weisheit zu hoch und zu umständlich, und so hat es die Wesenheit des Christus in dem Jesus von Nazareth geschildert. Manches Wort des Johannes-Evangeliums kann Ihnen erst verständlich werden, wenn Sie es von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus auffassen. Man braucht nur auf eines hinzuweisen: Wenn Sie den Ausspruch «Ich bin das Licht der Welt» wörtlich nehmen, so liegt darin angedeutet, daß Er der große Sonnenheld ist, daß Er das Licht, das der Sonne angehört, zu seiner Wesenheit hat. Wir nennen das ganze Heer der Geister, deren Anführer der Christus ist, die «Feuergeister», und wir sagen: Auf der Menschenstufe standen zur Zeit des Saturn die Asuras oder Ich-Geister, während des Sonnendaseins die Feuergeister oder die Logoi, deren höchsten Repräsentanten man als Logos oder Wort bezeichnet. Daher wird der Christus selbst als das «Wort» bezeichnet, das am Anfang, im Urbeginne war; «Urbeginn» bezeichnet in der Bibel einen ganz bestimmten Ausgangspunkt in der kosmischen Entwickelung.
[ 11 ] Wiederum kommt ein Zwischenzustand, eine Art Schlafzustand des ganzen Weltenkörpers, dann leuchtet er auf als alter Mond. Sie müssen sich denken, daß im Anfang durchaus die heutige Erde und der heutige Mond mit der Sonne einen Körper bildeten. Erst als die Sonne neu aufleuchtete, schnürte sich ein Teil der Wesenheiten mit einem Teil der Umgebung ab, so daß zwei Weltenkörper entstanden. Der eine, die Sonne, fängt an, Fixstern zu werden und wird umkreist von dem, was sich abgespalten hat. Es teilte sich also die alte Sonne in zwei Glieder; höher gearbeitetes Stoffliches blieb auf der Sonne zurück, und das - weniger Vollkommene wurde ausgeschieden, so daß, was früher einen Weg ging, weil nur ein Körper da war, nun zwei Wege ging: den Sonnenweg und den Mondenweg. Der Sonnenweg war derjenige, der sich da auf dem Sonnenkörper ausbildete; der Mond bildete seine eigene Welt aus. Den alten Mond würden Sie bekommen, wenn Sie die heutige Erde mit dem Mond zusammenrühren würden; daraus können Sie sich schon einen Schluß bilden auf die Art der Beschaffenheit des Mondes. Der heutige Mond ist in seiner ganzen Qualität physisch und geistig weit unter der Erde stehend, und die Erde trennte sich gerade deshalb vom Mond, um für ihre Wesen bessere Daseinsbedingungen zu haben. Die Erde hat sich schon wieder weiter gebildet als sie dazumal war in ihrem Mondenzustand. Das Beste blieb ja auf der Sonne zurück.
[ 12 ] Wie sah es nun auf dem Mond aus? Diejenigen Wesen, welche auf dem Saturn sich vorbereitet hatten durch die physische Anlage der Sinnesorgane, hatten diese auf der Sonne so umgestaltet, daß ihnen ein Ätherleib eingegliedert worden war; dadurch hatten sich die Sinnesorgane zentralisiert, und die erste Anlage zu allen Wachstumsorganen bis zu den Drüsen hin hatte sich auf der alten Sonne unter dem Einfluß des Ätherleibes ausbilden können. Es war das ein letztes Produkt des Sonnenzustandes. - Auf dem Mond wurde in ähnlicher Weise der Astralleib eingegliedert. Alles Astrale war ja zuerst in der Umgebung vorhanden — die Feuergeister hatten den Astralleib als das unterste Glied ausgebildet; daher bildeten diese Wesen wirklich eine Art Pflanzen; sie hatten zum Beispiel einen festen Standort. Obwohl der ganze Sonnenkörper gasig war, müssen Sie sich da dichtere Luftschichten denken, die für die Menschenpflanzen Leiber waren. Nun gliederte sich der Astralleib des Menschen ein: dadurch entstand die erste Anlage zu einem Nervensystem. Das Reich, das sich durch den Pflanzenzustand der Sonne hinaufentwickelt hatte, ging über in ein Tierartiges. So hatten die physischen Menschenvorfahren des Mondes die drei Leiber: physischen Leib, Ätherleib und Astralleib, aber sie waren um gut einen Grad höher als die heutigen höchsten Affen; es waren Menschentiere, die Ihnen keine Biologie mehr nachweisen kann, ein Zwischenreich zwischen Mensch und Tier. Unser heutiges Pflanzen-, Tier- und Mineralreich hat sich überhaupt erst später ausgebildet. Aber wie es Menschentiere gegeben hat, so müssen wir auch ein Zwischenreich zwischen Pflanze und Tier annehmen: Pflanzen, die eine halbe Empfindungsfähigkeit hatten, die tatsächlich gequietscht haben, wenn man sie angerührt hat. Diese Pflanzentiere hätten niemals auf einem solchen mineralischen Boden wachsen können, wie der heutige Boden der Erde ist; den gab es aber auch nicht. Der Mond bestand seiner Masse nach nicht aus dem heutigen Mineral, auch nicht einmal so etwas wie Ackererde war vorhanden. Der Mondgrund bestand, wenn man vergleichsweise spricht, aus so etwas, wie wenn man Salat oder Spinat kochen und einen Brei davon machen würde; darin war eine Art Mineralpflanze, und so war der ganze Mondgrund ein pflanzliches Wesen. Wenn Sie heute an Torfmoor denken, so gleicht es dem, was damals ein natürliches Reich zwischen unseren Pflanzen und Mineralien war. Felsen gab es auch nicht; wer über die Erde gewandelt wäre, würde über solchen Torfmoor- oder Pflanzenboden gegangen sein, und für die Felsen können Sie sich als Analoges verholzte Einlagen denken. Aus diesem ganzen Grunde heraus wuchsen die Pflanzentiere, und darüber bewegten sich dann diejenigen Wesenheiten, die Menschentiere waren, in dem Umkreis des Mondes, den man mit «Feuerluft» bezeichnet. Denken Sie sich die ganze Luft ausgefüllt mit Salpeter-, Kohlen- und Schwefelsäuredämpfen; in dieser feurigen Luft, die Sie so bekommen würden, lebten die Mondenmenschen. Der Okkultist kannte immer diese Feuerluft; und unter den alten Erdverhältnissen gab es sogar die Möglichkeit, chemisch solche Feuerluft herzustellen, was heute nur in ganz kleinem Kreise geschehen kann. Das Wissen davon hat sich die echte Alchimie bewahrt. Wenn Sie daher im «Faust» lesen: «ich will ein wenig Feuerluft machen», so ist das ein Anklang an die Tiefen des Okkultismus. Feuerluft umhüllte den Mond, das war seine Atmosphäre.
[ 13 ] Dieses Monddasein werden wir vielleicht noch besser verstehen, wenn wir noch etwas hinzu erwähnen. Ein Reich von Pflanzenmineralien hatten wir, von Tierpflanzen, die aus dem Pflanzenmineralboden herauswuchsen, und dann Tiermenschen, die sich darauf herumbewegten. Auf jeder Stufe gibt es aber nun solche Wesen, die zurückbleiben; nennen Sie es meinetwegen sitzenbleiben. Nicht nur in der Schule, sondern auch in der großen Entwickelung gibt es so etwas wie ein Sitzenbleiben, wo ein Schüler noch einmal dieselbe Klasse durchmachen muß. Solche Sitzengebliebenen erscheinen in ganz merkwürdigen Verhältnissen in den späteren Entwickelungsstadien. Wir haben die sitzengebliebenen Nachzügler der Tierpflanzen in den Parasiten, zum Beispiel in der Mistel. Sie kann deshalb nicht in mineralischem Boden wachsen, weil sie gewohnt war, im Pflanzenmineralboden zu wachsen. Sie ist ein Zeugnis für das, was so etwas wie einen sitzengebliebenen Schüler darstellt; nur geht es den Wesen, die in der Weltentwickelung zurückbleiben, noch viel schlimmer. Das hat wiederum die Mythe gerade in den nördlichen Gegenden zum Ausdruck gebracht. Sie kennen in der nordischen Mythe die Erzählung von Baldur und seinem Tod durch Loki.
[ 14 ] Einst trieben die Götter Lustbarkeiten im Asenheim, und sie warfen im Himmel spielend herum mit den verschiedensten Gegenständen. Aber vorher hatte Baldur Träume, die auf seinen baldigen Untergang hindeuteten; deshalb waren die Götter ängstlich, daß sie ihn verlieren könnten. Die Göttermutter hatte darauf allen Wesen Eide abgenommen, daß sie nie Baldur verletzen würden; denn die Götter hatten sich den Spaß gemacht, mit allen möglichen Dingen nach Baldur zu werfen. Loki, welcher der Gegner der Götter war, hatte erfahren, daß einem Wesen, das man für unschädlich hielt, dieser Eid nicht abgenommen war, der Mistel, die fern irgendwo verborgen war. Da verschaffte er sich die Mistel und gab sie dem blinden Gotte Hödur, der damit nach Baldur warf; die Mistel verwundete Baldur, da ihr der Eid nicht abgenommen war, und so starb Baldur. — Es soll in dieser Mythe angedeutet werden, daß dasjenige, was auf der Erde unverletzlich ist, durch nichts geschädigt werden kann als allein durch das, was als nun Schlechtes von einem andern Dasein zurückgeblieben ist. In der Mistel wurde etwas empfunden, was aus einem früheren Dasein in das jetzige hereingebracht worden ist. Alle die Wesen, die heute auf der Erde sind, haben ein Verhältnis zu Baldur. Auf dem Monde war es anders; daher ist das Wesen, das vom Monde zurückgeblieben ist, fähig, Baldur zu töten. Auch sonst sind die verschiedenen Bräuche, die an die Mistel anknüpfen, daraus entstanden.
[ 15 ] Dieses Mondendasein müssen wir noch nach einer andern, nach der geistigen Seite hin betrachten. Seine Wesenheiten, die damals Menschenstufe hatten, müssen wir beschreiben als Wesen, die als unterstes Glied den Ätherleib hatten, als zweites den Astralleib, dann das Ich, Geistselbst, Lebensgeist, Geistesmensch oder Atma, und dann hatten sie noch den Heiligen Geist. Sie hatten nicht mehr das neunte Glied, das nur noch den Sonnen-Feuergeistern eigen war. Den höchsten dieser Geister des Mondes, die damals Menschenstufe hatten, nennt man in der christlichen Esoterik den Heiligen Geist. So ist also die dreistufige Gottwesenheit in dem ursprünglichen Christentum in innerlichen Zusammenhang gebracht mit der Erdenentwickelung, und der Heilige Geist ist der über dem Menschen stehende Geist, der ihn unmittelbar inspirieren kann.
[ 16 ] So sehen Sie, daß die Geister des Mondes heute über dem Menschen stehen. Man nennt sie auch «lunarische Pitris», Mondväter, auch Geister des Zwielichts. Die ganze Schar aber, die zum Heiligen Geist gehörte, wird in der christlichen Esoterik die Schar der Engel genannt. Die Engel sind nichts anderes als diejenigen Geister, die unmittelbar über den Menschen stehen und die auf dem Monde ihr Menschendasein hatten.
[ 17 ] Das Leben der Tiermenschen und der Pflanzentiere auf dem Monde war anders als das Leben der Wesenheiten, die sich aus ihnen auf der Erde entwickelt haben. Die Bewegung des Mondes, der ja schon von der Sonne abgeschnürt war, war eine ganz andere als die Bewegung der heutigen Erde um die Sonne. Jener Mond drehte sich um die Sonne so herum, daß er ihr immer dieselbe Seite zuwendete, wie auch heute noch der Mond der Erde, so daß also der Mond sich nur einmal um sich selbst drehte, während er um die Sonne kreiste. Daher waren alle Wesenheiten in ganz anderer Weise von dem Sonnendasein abhängig, als sie es heute auf der Erde sind. Während der ganzen Umlaufzeit des Mondes um die Sonne war es auf der einen Seite immer Tag, auf der andern eine Art Nacht. Die Wesen, die damals schon ihren Ort verlassen konnten, wanderten in einer Art von Kreis um den Mond herum, so daß sie eine Zeit hatten, in der sie unter den Einfluß des Mondes kamen. Die Zeit, in der sie unter dem Einfluß der Sonne standen, war die Zeit, in der sie sich fortpflanzten. Es gab schon damals eine Fortpflanzung. Bei den Mondmenschen gab es noch nicht die Möglichkeit, daß sie durch Töne ihren Schmerz, ihre Lust ausgedrückt hätten; was sie ausdrückten, hatte eine mehr kosmische Bedeutung. Die Sonnenzeit war die Zeit der Brunst, die aber, wenn sie durchlebt wurde, verknüpft war mit einem furchtbaren Geschrei der Wesen, und das hat sich heute noch erhalten bei den Tieren.
[ 18 ] Noch manches andere von diesen Dingen ist zurückgeblieben. Sie wissen, wie man nachforscht nach dem Grund des Zuges der Vögel, die auch in gewisser Weise den Erdball umkreisen. Viele der Dinge, die heute geheimnisvoll verborgen sind, verstehen wir, wenn wir den ganzen Werdegang unseres Erdendaseins betrachten. Es gab eine Zeit, wo sich die Wesen nur dann zur Fortpflanzung anschiickten, wenn sie zur Sonne hin wanderten; man kann das die Periode des Geschlechtslebens nennen. Allgemeine Vorgänge des lunarischen Lebens drückten sich aus in Tönen, die zu gewissen Jahreszeiten auftraten; in den anderen Zeiten des Jahres war es stumm auf dem Monde.
[ 19 ] So haben wir kennengelernt den Durchgang der Erde durch ihre drei früheren Zustände: Saturn, Sonne und Mond.
Ninth Lecture
[ 1 ] Today, in the execution of the sketch given yesterday about planetary evolution, we will make further observations. It was said that our Earth had previously passed through a state of Saturn, Sun and Moon. Today, as is customary in occultism, I would like to describe these successive states to you. When we speak about the development of the soul on the path of knowledge, you will see how some of what is presented hypothetically today is meant. If we now go straight into the Saturn condition, that is, the condition of our Earth millions and millions of years before our time, it appears quite different from what is assumed according to our present-day physical conditions. Above all, we must be clear about the fact that the most perfect being we know, man himself, has the longest series of development behind him. So you will hear a story of development that could be said to differ greatly from the Haeckelian-Darwinian story of development. You will see the advantages of this purely materialistic theory in my book.
[ 2 ] First of all, it is important to understand that the most perfect has the longest development behind it. The most perfect being is now man, and first of all the physical human body. All the other beings around us are less perfect than the physical human body, which took the longest time to develop. Therefore, when we look back with spiritual insight, we find the first rudiments of the physical body already present in the state of Saturn. The entire cosmic space, with all the beings and things in it, have had an effect on the first state of the earth. They still have within them all the organs that were formed at that time as the most perfect of our physical bodies; these are the sense organs, the apparatuses that can be understood purely physically, which first arose in the beginning. You must not imagine, however, that the eye was already present as it is today. But the first rudiments of the eye, the ear, all the sense organs and all the other purely physical human organs arose on Saturn. Only those effects were present on Saturn that are still emerging today in the mineral kingdom. Man was present at that time in the first form of his physical body; everything else, blood, tissue and so on, was not there. The first physical apparatus was present in the human body. Just as emeralds, mica and so on arise through physical laws and develop as cubes, hexahedrons and so on, apparatus-like forms developed, which were present on the body of Saturn just as crystals are present in the body of the earth today. And the mode of operation of the surface of Saturn was essentially that of a kind of reflection into space. The beings that surrounded Saturn, scattered in space, cast their effects downwards. In particular, what is called the aroma of the world was also strongly developed at that time. Today, you can only get a sense of what was happening on Saturn at that time through certain phenomena: if you hear an echo in nature outside, you would have something in the tone of the echo that was poured out on Saturn from the impressions that had an effect on it. These devices, which reflected such images back into space, are the first rudiment of what later developed into the eye, for example. And in this way we could trace everything individually. What you carry in your body today was then a physical realm of Saturn, which reflected the whole world view back into space in manifold ways.
[ 3 ] Myths and legends have preserved this phenomenon much more clearly than one might suspect. For example, the Greek myth, which is still borrowed from the Eleusinian Mysteries, preserves something in the image of the interaction between Kronos and Rhea, whereby only a great distortion of the facts occurred due to the way the world was thought of at that time. We are told that Kronos throws down his beam and it returns to him in the most diverse ways; hence that image: he devours his children.
[ 4 ] Now you must not imagine that the mass of Saturn was something solid like today's physical bodies; even if you took water or air, you would still not get an idea of the basic substance of Saturn. In occultism, when one speaks of bodies, one speaks of solid, watery, and airy bodies. When one speaks of elements in the old sense, these correspond to what is called in chemistry today the aggregate states. You must not believe that the ancients meant the same thing by elements as we do. But then there is still a higher aggregate state, which in ancient occultism was called “fire”; one would better capture the meaning with “heat”. Physics, too, will be forced to recognize that what is called heat can really be compared to a kind of fourth aggregate state, a different kind of matter than air and water. So Saturn's mass was not even condensed into air; it was refined heat. It had a similar effect to the warmth in your blood today, and it was linked to inner life processes, because these physical processes were real life processes. Saturn consisted of heat matter, an extremely fine mass that could be called neutral in relation to our substances.
[ 5 ] If we now want to consider the beings that inhabited Saturn, we must first realize that what walks around on Earth today was there itself the first germ of the physical body; there was no ego or astral body in it. Other beings, however, who are much higher today than man, inhabited Saturn, only they did not walk around there in physical bodies either: they were embodied in the heat substance, and they worked like a heat current that moved along. Such heat currents formed the deeds of the beings that inhabited Saturn. Just as you shape a table today, so these beings did their work by creating heat currents. Otherwise, nothing was noticeable about them. Just as when two heat currents moved back and forth and exchanged information, so people greeted each other, so to speak, on Saturn. The beings who passed through their stage of humanity on Saturn did not have a physical body as their lowest link; they did not descend so far into matter that they needed a physical body. Their lowest link was the I, just as you today have the physical body as your lowest link; then came their spiritual self or Manas, their life spirit or Buddhi, the spirit man or Atma. But for this they had developed an eighth, ninth and tenth link, which we must therefore include in our list.
[ 6 ] Theosophical literature calls these links, which humans today have not yet developed, the “three Logoi”; in Christianity they are called: the Holy Ghost, the Son or the Word, and the Father. Thus we can say: Just as the human being today consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body and an ego, a spirit self, a life spirit and a spiritual being, so did these beings that inhabited Saturn, which we can compare to today's human being in his relationship to the earth, consist of the ego, spirit self, life spirit, spiritual being, the Holy Spirit, the Word or the Son, and the Father. Theosophical language calls them “Asuras”. They are the ones who, from the very beginning, have implanted independence, self-awareness and sense of self into the physical makeup of the human body. They could not use their eye in the service of the self if their makeup had not already been prepared in such a way that they could be placed in the service of the self. So these members have been prepared by the spirits of the ego — also called the spirits of selfishness. You have given us what is wisest if it is properly trained. But everything that is highest is perverted into its opposite, has the most harmful and corrupting effect if it is not properly trained. Man could never have attained that high level which we call independent human dignity if these spirits had not implanted in him the sense of self. There have always been beings who have taken the evil path. Therefore, it must be said: These entities, who were the implanters of the ego, who today are far above human beings, to whom we look up as the most exalted that can exist, they have placed the ego in the service of self-denial, of sacrifice; the others have pursued their ego selfishly.
[ 7 ] We carry within us the effects of those spirits of the ego that have taken the good path, in the pursuit of freedom and human dignity, and we carry the seed of evil within us because the beings that fell away at that time continued to work. This contrast has always been felt. Christianity itself distinguishes between the Father God, whom Christianity regards as the highest spirit of Saturn, and his adversary, the spirit of all evil egos and all radically immoral things, who fell away from Saturn at that time. These are the two representatives of Saturn.
[ 8 ] Just as you encounter other forms of existence after death, so does such a world body, before it enters into a new state , a kind of intermediate state, a kind of state of sleep, a pralaya, in contrast to a manvantara, so that between the Saturn and the sun state there is a kind of dormancy, latency of the planet. Then, out of this sleeping state, which is a spiritual state and not a state of rest, the whole planet emerges in a new form. Saturn, then, emerged again as the sun. A considerable change was now taking place. A large number of the abilities that had already developed on Saturn and that are now developing in us were now permeated by an etheric body on the sun. During such a planetary transition, something happens that can be compared to taking a fruit from a plant and placing it in the ground: it decays, but the potential for a new plant is formed. Thus, everything that had formed on Saturn emerged on the Sun as a new potential and permeated itself with an etheric body. Not everything — some remained behind in the way that what used to be the basis for the human body split into two realms. One part ascended to a kind of plant-human; just as the plant today has its etheric and physical body, so the sun-humans of that time had a physical and an etheric body. And on the mineral-physical level, other entities remained that could be compared to today's mineral kingdom. This included the sun as a subordinate natural kingdom, and it had pushed up another as a plant-human kingdom. You get a correct idea of the solar air when you imagine a chemically dense gas that no longer represents a mere reflecting body, but has now absorbed everything that it receives, and only after it has changed that within itself, throws it back again, as it is today with the color of the plant. The plant forms its green pigment and other things, and returns what it has formed to outer space.
[ 9 ] We can no longer compare what lived in the body of the sun with an echo or mirror image as in the case of Saturn, but a peculiar phenomenon for the beings that were embodied on the sun, which can only be compared to a kind of mirage, to aerial phenomena that are a kind of colored images. Such appearances, which today can only be perceived in certain areas of our earth's surface, would enable you to sense how the plant bodies became visible at that time. You must imagine that your own bodies had mirage-like predecessors, through which a present-day body can simply pass. They were as fine as mirages, but it was not just a light mirage, but at the same time there were sound and smell effects that swirled through the sun gas ball. While all the entities that were on the sun were luminous, like everything that is a fixed star today, the old Saturn realm of those entities that had remained behind seemed like a dark inclusion, like dark spots in contrast to the light, like dull caves within the body of the sun, disturbing its harmony. In particular, the retarded entities introduced perceptions regarding the aroma of the world, which spread all kinds of unpleasant odors. Our myth has retained this by saying that the devil stinks and leaves an evil odor behind him. A dark inclusion has indeed been left behind with the progress of the sun, and today's sunspots are really the stragglers of the old Saturn realm on the sun. But hypothetically, they can be explained exactly as they are today; all this applies.
[ 10 ] Thus we have sketched the Earth's existence on the Sun, so to speak, in a small sketch of its material side. We now want to see which entities had reached the stage of human beings at that time. We should describe them as having their lowest body in the astral body, then came their I, spiritual self, life spirit, their spirit man or Atma, then in the Christian sense the Holy Spirit and then the Son or the Word. The Father was something they did not have, something that was only developed in the Saturn age. These spirits have since risen higher and are far above man today. And the leader of the sun spirits, insofar as he has exercised the highest influence on earth, the representative of these spirits, who had the Son or the Word as the highest, is the Christ in the esoteric sense of Christianity, the actual ruler of the earth, insofar as the earth has the solar existence as a prerequisite. Not on the sun would one have called him Christ. In ancient Christianity this was always taught in this way, and the difference between true Christianity and exoteric Christianity, which is based on many misunderstandings, is that ancient Christianity wanted to apply all thinking and all views in order to comprehend the nature of the exalted Being who at that time had taken on human form in Jesus of Nazareth. Old Christianity wanted to have an idea of what was actually at the basis of it, and for this no wisdom was too abstruse and too complicated for it, and so it described the essence of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. Many a word in the Gospel of St. John can only be understood by you when you grasp it from this point of view. We need only point out one thing: if you take the saying, “I am the light of the world” literally, then it implies that He is the great solar hero, that the light that belongs to the sun is part of His nature. We call the entire host of spirits, of which Christ is the leader, the “fire spirits”, and we say: At the human level, during the time of Saturn, there were the asuras or ego-spirits; during the solar existence, there were the fire spirits or the logoi, whose highest representatives are referred to as Logos or Word. Therefore, the Christ Himself is referred to as the “Word” that was at the beginning, in the primeval beginning; in the Bible, “primeval beginning” refers to a very specific starting point in cosmic evolution.
[ 11 ] Then there comes an intermediate state, a kind of sleep state of the entire cosmic body, then it lights up as the old moon. You must imagine that in the beginning, the present Earth and the present Moon formed one body with the Sun. Only when the Sun shone anew did a part of the entities separate from a part of the surrounding area, so that two world bodies were formed. One of them, the Sun, begins to become a fixed star and is orbited by that which has split off. Thus the old sun divided into two parts; the more highly developed substance remained behind on the sun, and what was less perfect was cast out, so that what used to follow one path because there was only one body now followed two paths: the path of the sun and the path of the moon. The path of the sun was that which formed on the body of the sun; the moon formed its own world. You would get the old moon if you were to stir today's Earth together with the Moon; from this you can already draw a conclusion about the nature of the Moon. The present Moon is, in its entire quality, standing far below the Earth, both physically and spiritually, and the Earth separated from the Moon precisely in order to have better conditions for its beings. The Earth has already developed further than it was in its lunar state. The best remained on the Sun.
[ 12 ] What did the Moon look like? Those beings who had prepared themselves on Saturn by means of the physical structure of the sense organs had so transformed these on the Sun that an etheric body had been incorporated into them; thus the sense organs had become centralized, and the first rudiment of all the growth organs up to the glands had been able to develop on the old Sun under the influence of the etheric body. This was the last product of the solar state. In a similar way, the astral body was integrated on the moon. All that was astral was first present in the environment – the fire spirits had developed the astral body as the lowest link; therefore these beings really formed a kind of plant; for example, they had a fixed location. Although the entire body of the sun was gaseous, you have to imagine denser layers of air that were bodies for the human plants. Now the astral body of man was integrated: this is how the first rudiment of a nervous system came about. The realm that had developed through the plant state of the sun became more animal-like. Thus the physical human ancestors of the Moon had the three bodies: physical body, etheric body and astral body, but they were a good degree higher than today's highest monkeys; they were human animals that no biology can prove to you anymore, an intermediate realm between human and animal. Our present-day plant, animal and mineral kingdoms only developed later. But just as there were human animals, we must also assume an intermediate realm between plants and animals: plants that had a half-sensitivity, that actually squeaked when they were touched. These plant animals could never have grown on such a mineral soil as the earth's soil is today; but that did not exist either. The moon did not consist of the same mineral as it does today, nor was there anything like arable soil. The moon's soil consisted, comparatively speaking, of something like when you cook lettuce or spinach and make a puree out of it; there was a kind of mineral plant in it, and so the whole moon's soil was a plant-like being. If you think of peat bogs today, it resembles what was then a natural realm between our plants and minerals. There were no rocks either; anyone who walked on the earth would have walked on such a peat bog or plant soil, and for the rocks you can think of lignified deposits as an analogy. For this reason, the plant animals grew, and above them moved the entities that were human animals, in the environment of the moon, which is called “fire air”. Imagine the whole air filled with nitric, carbonic and sulfuric acid vapors; the moon people lived in this fiery air. The occultist always knew this fire-air; and under the old earth conditions there was even the possibility of chemically producing such fire-air, which today can only be done in a very small way. The knowledge of this has been preserved in genuine alchemy. Therefore, when you read in Faust: “I will make a little fire-air,” it is an echo of the depths of occultism. Fire-air enveloped the moon; that was its atmosphere.
[ 13 ] We may gain a better understanding of this lunar existence if we mention something else. We had a realm of plant minerals, of animal plants that grew out of the plant-mineral soil, and then animal-men that moved around on it. At every stage, however, there are beings that are left behind; call it sitting still if you like. Not only in school, but also in the great evolution, there is such a thing as being left behind, where a student has to go through the same class again. Such left-behinds appear in very strange circumstances in the later stages of development. We have the left-behind stragglers of the animal plants in the parasites, for example in the mistletoe. It cannot grow in mineral soil because it was used to growing in plant-mineral soil. It is a testimony to what something like a left-behind student represents; only the beings who lag behind in world evolution fare much worse. This, in turn, has been expressed in myths, especially in northern regions. You know the story of Baldur and his death at the hands of Loki in Nordic mythology.
[ 14 ] Once the gods were celebrating in the home of the Aesir, and they were throwing around the most diverse objects in the sky. But Baldur had dreams that pointed to his imminent demise; so the gods were afraid that they would lose him. The mother of the gods had then taken an oath from all beings that they would never harm Baldur; for the gods had made fun of throwing all sorts of things at Baldur. Loki, who was the enemy of the gods, had learned that a being who was thought to be harmless had not taken this oath, the mistletoe, which was hidden far away somewhere. So he procured the mistletoe and gave it to the blind god Hödur, who threw it at Baldur; the mistletoe wounded Baldur, since it had not been sworn to secrecy, and so Baldur died. This myth is intended to suggest that that which is inviolable on earth can be harmed by nothing but that which has been left over from another existence as something bad. Something was sensed in the mistletoe that had been brought into the present existence from an earlier one. All the beings that are on earth today have a relationship to Baldur. On the moon it was different; therefore the being that remained from the moon is able to kill Baldur. The various customs associated with mistletoe also originated from this.
[ 15 ] We must still look at this existence on the moon from a different, more spiritual point of view. We must describe its essences, which were then at the human stage, as beings that had the etheric body as the lowest link, the astral body as the second, then the I, spiritual self, life spirit, spiritual man or atma, and then they still had the Holy Spirit. They no longer had the ninth link, which was only inherent in the solar fire spirits. The highest of these spirits of the moon, which at that time had the level of a human, is called the Holy Spirit in Christian esotericism. Thus, in original Christianity, the three-tiered divine presence is brought into an inner connection with earthly development, and the Holy Spirit is the spirit that stands above man, who can inspire him directly.
[ 16 ] Thus you see that the spirits of the moon are above man today. They are also called “lunar Pitris,” moon fathers, and spirits of the twilight. But the whole host that belonged to the Holy Spirit is called the host of angels in Christian esotericism. The angels are nothing more than those spirits who stand directly above humans and who had their human existence on the moon.
[ 17 ] The life of the animal-men and the plant-animals on the moon was different from the life of the entities that developed from them on Earth. The motion of the moon, which was already cut off from the sun, was quite different from the motion of today's Earth around the sun. That moon revolved around the sun in such a way that it always turned the same side towards it, just as the moon still does today towards the earth, so that the moon only turned around itself once while it revolved around the sun. Therefore, all beings were dependent on the solar existence in a completely different way than they are today on earth. During the entire time it took the moon to orbit around the sun, it was always day on one side and a kind of night on the other. The beings that were already able to leave their place at that time wandered around the moon in a kind of circle, so that they had a time when they came under the influence of the moon. The time when they were under the influence of the sun was the time when they reproduced. Even then there was reproduction. The moon people did not yet have the possibility of expressing their pain and pleasure through sounds; what they expressed had a more cosmic meaning. The time of the sun was the time of the heat, but when it was experienced, it was associated with a terrible screaming of the beings, and that has been preserved even today among animals.
[ 18 ] Many other things of this kind have been left behind. You know how to investigate the reason for the migration of birds, which also circle the globe in a certain way. Many of the things that are mysteriously hidden today will be understood when we consider the whole development of our existence on earth. There was a time when the beings only prepared for reproduction when they migrated towards the sun; this can be called the period of sexual life. General processes of lunar life were expressed in sounds that occurred at certain times of the year; at other times of the year the moon was silent.
[ 19 ] Thus we have come to know the transition of the Earth through its three previous states: Saturn, Sun and Moon.