Rosicrucian Esotericism
GA 109
8 June 1909, Budapest
6. The Configuration and Metamorphoses of Man's Physical Body
In continuation of the lecture yesterday concerning man's evolution, we will go back in thought today to epochs in the remote past and consider matters relating to them. Before speaking of the fact of reincarnation and discussing questions of human destiny, however, we will pass in review lengthy periods in ancient epochs of the evolution of humanity.
Man of the present age confronts us as an assemblage of physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego—the bearer of the ego, which means complete independence. Neither the ego nor the astral body are the most perfect members of man's being by reason of being more spiritual; the physical body, a structure consisting of the most wonderful components, is the most perfect member. What a truly magnificent structure it is, this physical body of man! The astral body is admittedly more inherently spiritual but it is less perfect; it is the bearer of joy and pain of urges, desires and passions. Why is the physical body the more perfect? Think of man's physical heart. It is a marvellous structure, holding its ground all through life against attacks! The same applies to all the other organs of the physical body. Wisdom itself is articulate in them. How does the astral body behave toward the heart? Certainly not always wisely! Because of its longings, the astral body needs to have the means for enjoyment and it continually maltreats the physical body, continually launches attacks upon the physical heart, which offers resistance. Why? Because the process of building the physical body has occupied a far longer period in the past than have the other bodies. The physical body is the oldest member of man's being, hence also the most perfect. A host of more advanced beings have already worked on it. Everything physical and material has evolved from spirit, has developed into its present form. The very first beginning of the human being in the physical world was the establishment of his physical body. At that time there were still no rudiments in the physical world of the etheric body, none of the astral body nor of the ego-bearer.
Everything in the universe is subject to the process of evolution, not only man but also a planet such as our earth. Our earth, like man, has already existed in other planetary embodiments, the first of which we call Saturn, the second, Old Sun, and the third, Old Moon. We must not think here of the present moon, which is only residue, dross or slag of the Old Moon.
We will now hear why our moon has since olden time been called “moon.” Here it must be remembered that the giving of names by the old occultists was by no means fortuitous but of deep significance. The name given to a thing or a being was always organically linked with what each was to express. The preceding planetary embodiment of our earth was the Old Moon; the still earlier embodiment was the Old Sun, not the present sun, which is like a remembrance of that ancient Sun. Then we come to that cosmic body to which it is now possible to look back with occult sight; this cosmic body is Saturn, Old Saturn, of which we have already spoken.
I will now speak briefly of the evolution of this ancient Saturn. To begin with, we must be clear in our minds about the character of the basic elements of our outer world, according to occultists. Ancient occultism distinguished the four elements of earth, water, air, fire or warmth. For a modern physicist this no longer has meaning; what modern science calls an element does not coincide with what the occultist means by the word. The modern expression “aggregate condition” means roughly the same as “element.” Everything that is solid in present temperatures on the earth is called by the occultist, “earthy” or “solid”; a quartz crystal, for example, in conditions of present-day temperatures, is “earth” for the occultist. Everything fluid, also fluid metals and so on, is “water” for him; everything aeriform is “air.” What the modern physicists regards as a state of the three “aggressive assemblages,” namely, fire, is for the occultist, the fourth element. I well know that modern science considers it a veritable abomination when fire is regarded not merely as a condition but as something on a par with earth, water or air. On Old Saturn you would have found no earth, water or air; warmth or fire alone was in existence. If at that time—perhaps by putting a chair in cosmic space—you had been able to observe the Saturn evolution with clairvoyant sight, perception of it could only have been through the sense of warmth; at first, this was purely warmth of soul, inner warmth. With the exception of man, no single one of the beings on the earth today was present. There was no mineral, plant or animal kingdom. Under the conditions prevailing today, man needs the three kingdoms for his organic structure; in that period of ancient Saturn it was not so. The whole human being was a formation consisting only of warmth. Otherwise, nothing whatever of man was in existence. Try to think away from man as he is today everything physically perceptible, even the in-haled air, and imagine that he consists only and entirely of the warmth of the blood circulating in him, thus forming a picture of the blood system as it is today. Such was the constitution of all human beings on Saturn. For the occultist, a celestial body is only an assemblage of spiritual beings. The earth, too, is an assemblage of beings belonging to the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms.
The consciousness of the men of ancient Saturn was also evolving. It was dull but comprehensive. Only on the earth has the clear day consciousness of the present time become possible. The consciousness of human beings on Saturn was dull and in a curious state. Man, as you know, is today unconscious during sleep. Now think of the plant, simply the physical plant without the beings concealed behind it. There you have a demonstration of a still deeper state, namely, dreamless sleep. The plant is a being in a condition of deep sleep. Now think of a state of sleep that is still deeper, still dimmer. this is the state of deep trance—the Saturn consciousness. I will describe it to you by means of an example of conditions that are abnormal in the modern age, occurring in a human being whose consciousness remained backward. A girl who up to her eighteenth year was totally unaccustomed to any form of alcoholic beverage was tempted by certain circumstances to drink rapidly a number of glassfuls of red wine. On account of certain organic conditions this made such an impression that she fell into a moribund state. A pencil was put in her hand and she began to make all kinds of drawings to which she added names. She had no consciousness whatever of what she was doing. She was like a machine, without life or consciousness. If you were to compare what this girl wrote down with what is said in theosophical books about planets, the structure of the universe today, and so on, you would find that what she wrote is, it is true, a strange cosmology but, for all that, one that in certain respects tallies with occult cosmology. The girl was in a state of consciousness deeper than that of ordinary sleep. In such a state the individual concerned is able in his dull consciousness to move far, far over the earth and to give expression to cosmic facts. The occultist knows that such a consciousness, dull and comprehensive, without the pertinent ego, is present in a physical stone, and that if the stone could be articulate it would be able to do what the girl did. This consciousness, although dull, embraces vast regions. Such was the consciousness of men on ancient Saturn.
Saturn itself was an entity unconscious of its own identity, or better said, was possessed of a low form of consciousness to be described by saying that it bore within it a mirror-image of the whole cosmos and would have been capable of delineating it. To understand what this implies we must consider other matters. While man was finding on Saturn the sphere where the first rudiments for his physical body could take shape, Saturn was at the same time the stage at which other beings also were able to evolve, beings whose rank today is much higher than that of man. We will clarify this by quoting an utterance once made by an Egyptian sage to a Greek. He said, “You Greeks remain forever big children. You know nothing about the greatest secret of the Mysteries, namely, that gods were once men.” It is no longer necessary for these beings to enter into physical existence.
On ancient Saturn, then, man was a kind of mineral; his consciousness was also on a par with that of the mineral. But beings who today are at a stage far higher than that of men once lived in human bodies. These are the Archai, First Beginnings, or Spirits of Personality. They passed through their “human” epoch on Old Saturn.1For an explanation of “human” epoch, see An Outline of Occult Science, Anthroposophic Press, 1972, pp. 125–6. They were not men as we are today but merely made use of the then “physical” body in order to experience their human epoch, to acquire ego consciousness. These sublime beings therefore acquired ego consciousness on Saturn and used the human body as a vehicle deputizing as their bodily dwelling place. Certain beings permeated the human physical body together with their distinctive characteristics and for these, man today owes twofold thanks. First, the faculty that alone enables an ego-bearer to find a footing in him; it was these Spirits of Personality who endowed the human body at that time with the form proceeding from their own nature. But second, they also made it possible for man to develop selfishness. Through the influence of the Spirits of Personality, man's body was endowed with the germinal capacity to develop as a free personality but at the same time to cultivate selfishness, egoism. If I wanted to describe all the pertinent details of this process I should need not one lecture or one lecture course but years. Hence, we can study steps or stages only and we will consider seven such stages in the Saturn evolution, each differing from the others.
At the first stage you must picture to yourselves that as yet no physical warmth was present but that this was only in preparation. All that was present was purely of the nature of soul; soul warmth was present, and not until the midpoint of Saturn evolution was the physical human body in existence, composed of physical warmth substance. At the end of the Saturn evolution this human body of warmth dissolves. There are seven stages: three preliminary stages, a stage of physical warmth and three descending stages; each of these seven stages has again seven sub-divisions of which it is better not to speak at this point and to which we will return in the course of studying the evolution of the earth. In modern theosophical literature these stages are called rounds and globes.
But now we will ask, “Whence came the substance out of which the human body was formed?” Sublime spiritual beings poured forth their own being and let it flow down as substance for the physical body of man. These beings were the Spirits of Will or the Thrones. They made the sacrifice of allowing the outpouring of their own being to take place. On Saturn, then, we find the Spirits of Will or the Thrones who give the substance for the human body, then the Spirits of Personality who inhabit Saturn during their human epoch and man himself as a physical germinating entity. The Saturn evolution takes its course in such a way that we must picture the beginning, the zenith and the ebb. Thereafter, the whole planet passes through a pralaya. We can think of the process in connection with the plant. The seed is laid in the earth, decays and carries over the form into a new existence. Just as between the first and the second plant there is an intermediate condition, a hidden condition, so is it in the case of the planet. This condition is called the “sleep of worlds.”
After this sleep of worlds, when Saturn appeared again but metamorphosed, it was the Old Sun that now came into existence. The difference between Saturn and Sun is that the warmth substance of Saturn had densified to a gaseous state. Old Sun retained the warmth but evolved something as well, namely, air, so that on the Old Sun there was now warmth and air, and moreover light. Saturn consisted of dark warmth; the second planet, Old Sun, consisted of light—burning gas—warmth ether and air. Through Saturn there came into existence once and forever the foundation for the existence of the seed of the physical body of man. Now, on Old Sun, something new is added. The etheric body is poured into this substance by spiritual beings. This is the second planetary condition in which man has achieved the status of a plant. There is life in him. Through the integration of the etheric body, however, the physical body of man has also changed. It does not retain the egg-form of the Saturn period but is membered in itself. It is now a vibrant warmth egg in which forms of light gleam and fade away and in which there are indentures. The etheric body now works upon and elaborates the physical body.
Whereas on Saturn the Thrones poured out from them-selves the substance of the physical body, it is now other beings who pour out substance as their great sacrifice. These beings are the Spirits of Wisdom, Dominions or Kyriotetes. The more difficult sacrifice had been made by the Thrones. Had they not created the foundation, the Spirits of Wisdom could not have begun their work.
Again there were beings who passed through their “human” epoch on the Sun, namely, the Archangels or Fire Spirits—Archangeloi in Christian esotericism. Acting as substitutes they indwelt the body of man and in this way developed their ego consciousness.
Something must here be mentioned that it is important to remember. If, after pralaya, Saturn had emerged directly as Sun, the bodies of men could not have received the etheric body into themselves. On the new planet, Old Sun, there had first to be a brief recapitulation of Saturn, during which the beings concerned were obliged to assume their old form once again.
What other kind of beings were to be found on Old Sun? Certain Spirits of Personality had not reached their human stage on Saturn, had not succeeded in acquiring their ego consciousness on Saturn. They were obliged to make up for this on Old Sun and were therefore still at the same stage as their companions on Saturn. Hence, on Old Sun they were obliged to live as it were in a husk, in a mineral body that was not permeated by an etheric body. On Old Sun, therefore, a structure consisting only of physical body came into existence. Thus, structures of a lower grade existed side by side with those that consisted of physical body and etheric body, and these were the predecessors of our present animals. On Old Sun, therefore, there were two kingdoms: a human kingdom and the kingdom of the beings who, on Old Sun, were at the stage of the Saturn evolution. They constitute our present animal kingdom. On Old Sun there were thus two preliminary kingdoms, a human kingdom and an animal kingdom. The successors of the latter are the present higher animals.
Old Sun now passes again into a kind of “cosmic night” and is born again in a third metamorphosis as Old Moon, which is able, at the beginning, to recapitulate the earlier stages to which fluid or watery substance is now added. When the separation of the Sun takes place, warmth and light go with it; sublime beings also go forth together with the finer essences. What has become fluid or “watery” goes forth as Moon, condenses further and becomes a kind of secondary planet. At that time on Old Moon, therefore, there were warmth, light and water. Man has his etheric or light body as on Old Sun; the new element that is added on Old Moon is what may be called tone or sound. In order to realize more clearly what this means I will give an illustration. Think of a metal plate covered with powder, across the edge of which a violin bow is drawn. The powder shapes itself into definite forms—the sound figures of the physicist. What we today recognize as sound or tone is the physical configuration of the sound. The “water” on the Old Moon was permeated with sound and thereby stirred into regular movement. Inner experience is thereby made possible in the physical bodies of beings on Old Moon; organs take shape, for example, the liver, but it passes away again. The process is one of the forming and disappearance of organs, an experience of figures and rhythms. The bodies present are thus made ready to receive astral substance into themselves. The impact of the primeval tone in the watery substance is expressed in the Bible as follows: God arranged everything according to measure, number and weight. The essentially new feature of Old Moon evolution is therefore the process of inner oscillation that is forced, as it were, into the physical substance. You must think of Old Moon as being permeated by this inner oscillation, which is diversified into regular, numerical rhythms. Earlier, on Saturn, it had been warmth formations that built the human body; later, on Old Sun, it had been aeriform formations, appearing like an aerial mirage, like a Fata Morgana. On Old Moon, substance was now water, stirred into movement by inner oscillation. Organic members involved in a process of inner metamorphosis were brought into existence by this oscillation and shimmered through the human body. You must conceive of this as a transient process of coming into being and passing away again; thus, a liver or lung was formed in the human body and then dissolved. Such were the conditions on Old Moon. The Bible expresses it as follows: God once ordered everything according to number, measure and weight. The inner oscillation is here meant.
Within Old Moon there now, firstly, come into existence again the earlier structures of the human body; the physical and etheric bodies are formed again. Why? Because what first takes place on Old Moon is a repitition of the Saturn and Old Sun embodiments. Only then does the real Old Mood come into existence. Into the physical human body, which now contained the watery substance on the one hand, and on the other, as a result of the inner oscillation, was permeated by the primal tone and the etheric body, the Spirits of Movement, Powers or Dynameis pour the astral body of man. They, as the Spirits of Will on Saturn and the Spirits of Wisdom on the Sun had done, now offer up, out of their own substance, the human astral body. Thus, the development of the earth is continually progressing, and also that of man himself who is to inhabit it.
The human physical body, as you have heard, developed on Saturn. Through the three metamorphoses—Saturn, Sun, Moon—it has now reached the third stage of perfection. On Old Moon this physical body of man had come still nearer to resemble its present form. But the further development that was necessary for man's astral body would not have been possible on the earth if a severance had not taken place at a certain point of time. A basic mass of substance of the planet—the Old Moon—remained; part of it went out and surrounded the basic mass. Firstly, there was Saturn; secondly, Sun; thirdly, Moon. The best substances and beings have now separated into a basic body which, during the earth period, again separates and becomes a fixed star, higher in rank than a planet. Still another body separates and remains a planet. The sun of today was once a planet. If you were to take the present sun, the present moon and the substance of our earth with its beings, and combine them in a huge vessel, you would have Old Sun. If you were to combine earth and moon you would have Old Moon.
In the course of the evolution of humanity, our sun separated from the planet earth. With it the best substances and the best beings went out of the earth. The watery element, becoming denser and denser, accompanied the sun. The dense figures and forms are the bearers of the beings who inhabited Old Moon. Human beings now chose a separate scene of action. A fixed star, a sun, always comes into existence as the result of a planet having advanced. During this process of evolution, men were not the only beings who were present and had evolved to the stage of having as members the three bodies, physical body, etheric body and astral body. There were also other beings who had remained behind in their development.
The beings who had passed through their “human” epoch. on Old Moon were the Angels, called Angeloi in Christian esotericism and in India, Lunar Pitris. The consciousness of these beings was different from that of men today. But on Old Moon there were other beings as well. There were certain Archangeloi who had remained backward on Old Sun and were now obliged to repeat their “human” stage on Old Moon. There were also beings who had reached the stage of Spirits of Personality, (i.e., the Saturn stage of humanity) on Old Moon for the first time.
The Archangeloi who had become backward on Old Sun, produced as human bodies structures that had physical and etheric bodies only. This was a kingdom below that of man, a kingdom that continued on the earth as the animal kingdom; the beings belonging to it were the precursors of the physical bodies of the present animal world, and beings who on Old Moon had only a physical body were the precursors of the present plant kingdom, Thus, on Old Moon there was a human kingdom, an animal kingdom and a plant kingdom, on Saturn there was a human kingdom only, and on Old Sun a human kingdom and and animal kingdom. The mineral kingdom is the last of the kingdoms that have come into existence in the process of cosmic evolution. Man, the human kingdom, is the oldest kingdom in the evolutionary process; he was already there before the earth was in existence. On the earth he then receives, in addition to this three bodies, the fourth member of his being, the bearer of the ego.
Die Gestaltung und die Wandlungen des physischen Menschenleibes
Heute wollen wir, anschließend an die gestern in bestimmten engen Grenzen betrachtete Entwickelung der Menschheit, zurückgehen bis in die längst vergangenen Epochen der Entwickelung, und betrachten, was damit zusammenhängt. Ehe wir in diesem Zusammenhange die Tatsache der Reinkarnation besprechen, die wir unmittelbar daran anschließen könnten, und ehe wir die Fragen des menschlichen Schicksals, des Karmagesetzes erörtern, wollen wir noch zu älteren Zeiten zurückgehen und den Blick über große Perioden der Menschheitsevolution schweifen lassen.
Der heutige Mensch stellt sich uns dar als ein Gefüge von physischem Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich - dem Träger des Ich und der eigentlichen Selbständigkeit. Nicht das Ich oder der Astralleib sind die vollkommensten Glieder am Menschen, weil sie geistig höher stehen, sondern der physische Leib. Er ist das vollkommenste Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, ein Gefüge, eine Zusammensetzung aus wunderbarsten Einzelheiten. Welch ein Wunderbau ist dieser physische Menschenleib! Der Astralleib, er ist zwar geistiger, aber weniger vollkommen; er ist der Träger von Freude und Schmerz, von Trieb, Begierde und Leidenschaft. Warum ist der physische Leib dennoch vollkommener? Betrachten Sie das menschliche physische Herz. Welch ein Wundergebilde ist dieses, daß es das ganze Leben lang all den Angriffen standhält! Und ebenso ist es mit allen andern Organen des physischen Leibes: Weisheit spricht aus ihnen. Und wie ist es nun beim Astralleib in bezug auf dieses Herz? Keineswegs benimmt er sich immer weise. Der Astralleib braucht Mittel des Genusses aus der Sehnsucht am Genuß heraus und malträtiert damit fortwährend den physischen Leib; fortwährend führt er Attacken auf das physische Herz aus, und dieses leistet ihm Widerstand. Warum? Weil der Bau des physischen Leibes bereits eine viel längere Zeit in der Vergangenheit in Anspruch genommen hat als die andern Körper. Der physische Menschenleib ist das älteste Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, daher auch das vollkommenste. Fine Schar vollkommener Wesenheiten haben an ihm schon gearbeitet. Alles, was physisch, was sinnlich ist, das hat sich aus dem Geiste heraus entwickelt, hat sich vom Geiste herabgearbeitet zu seiner physischen Gestalt. Das erste, was vom Menschen in der physischen Welt vorhanden war, das war die Anlage des menschlichen physischen Leibes. Damals war noch keine Anlage des Ätherleibes, des Astralleibes und des Ich-Trägers in der physischen Welt vorhanden.
Alles in der Welt ist in Entwickelung, nicht nur der Mensch, sondern auch ein Planet wie unsere Erde. Wie der Mensch, so hat auch diese unsere Erde schon andere planetarische Verkörperungen durchgemacht. Die erste davon nennen wir den Saturn, die zweite die Sonne und die dritte den Mond. Dabei müssen wir absehen von dem heutigen Mond; der ist nur ein Rest, ein Überbleibsel, eine Schlacke des alten Mondes.
Wir wollen nun sehen, warum seit alten Zeiten unser Mond «Mond» genannt wird. Dabei müssen wir uns daran erinnern, daß die Namengebung der alten Okkultisten absolut nichts Zufälliges, sondern etwas tief Bedeutsames war. Der Name, der gegeben wurde einem Ding oder einem Wesen, der war organisch immer verknüpft mit dem, was das Wesen ausdrücken soll. Der vorhergehende planetarische Zustand unserer Erde war also der alte «Mond»; der noch frühere die alte «Sonne», nicht die heutige Sonne; diese ist wie eine Erinnerung an jene alte Sonne. Zuerst kommen wir dann bis zu jenem Weltenkörper, auf den es heute zunächst [noch] möglich ist, mit den okkulten Mitteln zurückzublicken: es ist der « Saturn», der alte Saturn, von dem wir schon öfter gesprochen haben. Skizzenhaft will ich Ihnen nun diesen alten Saturn in seiner Entwickelung beschreiben. Dabei wollen wir uns zuerst klarmachen, was im Sinne des Okkultisten die Grundelemente unserer äußeren Welt sind. Man hat unterschieden im alten Okkultismus die vier Elemente: Erde, Wasser, Luft, Feuer oder Wärme. Für den heutigen Physiker hat das keinen rechten Sinn mehr; was die heutige Wissenschaft Element nennt, das deckt sich nicht mehr recht mit dem, was der Okkultist darunter versteht. Die heutige Benennung «Aggregatzustand» ist etwa gleichbedeutend mit «Element». Der Okkultist nennt erdig oder fest alles, was bei den heutigen Temperaturen auf der Erde fest ist: ein Quarzkristall zum Beispiel ist bei den heutigen Temperaturzuständen für den Okkultisten «Erde». Alles Flüssige, auch flüssige Metalle und so weiter sind für ihn « Wassem, alles Gasförmige wird « Luft» genannt. Und das, was der heutige Physiker als einen Zustand der drei Aggregatzusammensetzungen ansieht, das Feuer, das ist für den Okkultisten das vierte Element. Ich weiß sehr wohl, daß es der Wissenschaft ein wahrer Greuel ist, wenn man das Feuer nicht bloß als einen Zustand, sondern als etwas, was gleichberechtigt ist mit der Erde, dem Wasser und der Luft, ansieht. Dreist darf man sich im Okkultismus vorstellen, daß Wärme etwas ist, was noch von feinerer Substanz ist als die drei andern: Erde, Wasser, Luft. Von Erde, Wasser und Luft hätten Sie auf dem Saturn nichts gefunden, nur Wärme oder Feuer war vorhanden. Hätten Sie damals mit hellseherischem Blick das verfolgen können, indem Sie sich einen Stuhl in den Weltenraum gestellt und die Saturnentwickelung beobachtet hätten, nur eine Wahrnehmung hätten Sie mit dem Wärmesinn machen können, und zwar war es zuerst nur seelische Wärme. Von all den Wesen, die heute auf der Erde sind, war auf dem Saturn nur der Mensch vorhanden; kein Mineral-, kein Pflanzen-, kein Tierreich war da. Unter den heutigen Verhältnissen braucht der Mensch die drei Reiche zu seinem Aufbau; im damaligen Zustand brauchte er sie nicht. Der ganze Mensch war sozusagen nur vorhanden als ein Wärmegebilde. Nichts, nichts sonst war vom Menschen da. Denken Sie sich nun vom heutigen Menschen alles weg, was Sie physisch an ihm wahrnehmen, selbst die eingeatmete Luft, und lassen Sie nichts von ihm bestehen als das, was ihn heute durchströmt als seine heutige Blutwärme, aber so gestaltet, wie wenn Sie heute das Blutsystem nachmalen würden: nur solche Menschen gab es auf dem alten Saturn, sonst nichts. Ein Himmelskörper ist für den Okkultisten nur eine Zusammensetzung von Wesenheiten. Auch die Erde ist nichts anderes als eine Zusammensetzung von mineralischen, pflanzlichen, tierischen und menschlichen Wesenheiten.
Das Bewußtsein der alten Saturnmenschen war auch schon in Entwickelung. Es war dumpf, aber umfassend. Das heutige helle Tagesbewußtsein ist erst auf der Erde möglich geworden. Die Menschen auf dem alten Saturn hatten einen sehr merkwürdigen dumpfen Bewußtseinszustand. Sie wissen, der Mensch ist schon im Schlafe bewußtlos. Nun, nehmen Sie die Pflanze, nur die physische Pflanze, ohne die hinter der Pflanze sich verbergenden Wesenheiten: da haben Sie einen Schlafzustand, der noch tiefer, traumloser Schlaf ist. Die Pflanze ist ein tiefschlafendes Wesen. Und nun denken Sie sich einen Zustand des Schlafes, der noch tiefer, noch dumpfer ist, das Tief-Trancebewußtsein, dann haben Sie das Saturnbewußtsein. Ich will es Ihnen beschreiben dadurch, daß ich Ihnen eine Art abnormen Zustand der heutigen Zeit - eines in früheren, jetzt also abnormen Verhältnissen zurückgebliebenen Wesens - an einem beobachteten Beispiel schildere: Ein Mädchen, das bis zu seinem achtzehnten Lebensjahr ganz ungewohnt war jeglichen Alkoholgenusses, wird durch ein Ereignis verführt, rasch einige Gläser Rotwein hinunterzustürzen. Dieses machte nun, vermöge anderer Verhältnisse ihres Organismus, einen solchen Eindruck, daß sie wie tot war. Man gab ihr nun einen Bleistift in die Hand, und sie fing an, allerlei Dinge zu zeichnen und schrieb Namen dazu. Sie hatte keine Ahnung von dem, was sie tat. Sie war wie eine Maschine; sie hatte kein Leben, kein Bewußtsein. Wenn Sie nun das, was dieses Mädchen aufzeichnete, vergleichen mit dem, was in den theosophischen Büchern von Planeten und dem, was heute das Weltengebäude und so weiter ist, steht, so würden Sie finden, daß das, was dieses Mädchen da aufgeschrieben hat, zwar eine ganz merkwürdige Kosmologie ist, aber doch mit der okkulten Kosmologie in einigem übereinstimmt. Es war in einem Zustand, tiefer als der gewöhnliche Schlaf. Dabei ist das Wesen fähig, weit, weit über die Erde in seinem dumpfen Bewußtseinsinhalte hinauszugehen und kosmische Dinge zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Der Okkultist weiß, daß im physischen Stein ein solches Bewußtsein vorhanden ist: dumpf und umfassend, Stein ohne die dazugehörigen Iche, und daß der Stein, wenn er so sich zum Ausdruck bringen könnte, ähnlich es täte. Weite Gebiete umfaßt dieses Bewußtsein, aber dumpf. So war das Bewußtsein der Menschen auf dem alten Saturn.
Der Saturn selbst ist ein Wesen, das seiner selbst unbewußt ist, besser gesagt, ein niederes Bewußtsein hatte, welches so zu beschreiben ist, daß er in sich trug ein Spiegelbild des ganzen Kosmos, und daß er imstande gewesen wäre, das zeichnen zu können. Um solches zu verstehen, müssen wir noch anderes betrachten. Während also der Mensch auf.dem Saturn die Stätte fand, wo die erste Anlage für seinen physischen Leib sich bilden konnte, war der Saturn gleichzeitig der Schauplatz, worauf sich auch andere Wesen entwickeln konnten, Wesen, die heute weit, weit über dem Menschen stehen. Wir wollen uns das klarmachen an einem Ausspruch, den ein ägyptischer Weiser einem Griechen gegenüber getan hat. Er sagte: Ihr Griechen, ihr bleibt doch immer große Kinder. Ihr wißt nichts von dem größten Mysteriengeheimnis, daß Götter einst Menschen waren! - Diese Wesenheiten haben dann nicht mehr nötig, in das physische Dasein einzutreten.
Der Mensch war also auf dem alten Saturn wie eine Art Mineral; er hatte auch ein Bewußtsein wie das Mineral. In dem Menschenleibe aber haben gewohnt Wesenheiten, die heute weit erhaben sind über die Menschheitsstufe. Es sind die Urbeginne oder Archai oder Geister der Persönlichkeit. Die haben auf dem Saturn ihre Menschheitsstufe durchgemacht. Nicht Menschen, wie wir heute, waren sie, sie benützten nur den physischen Menschenleib, um sich der Welt gegenüberzustellen, um ihre Menschheitsstufe zu erleben, das Ich-Bewußtsein zu erringen. Sie hatten also ihr Ich-Bewußtsein auf dem Saturn, diese erhabenen Wesenheiten, und wie einen Wagen brauchten sie den Menschenleib, der ihnen stellvertretend als ihre leibliche Wohnung galt. Gewisse Wesen durchdrangen da den menschlichen physischen Leib und durchdrangen ihn mit ihren Eigenschaften, und diesen verdankt der Mensch heute zweierlei. Erstens die Fähigkeit, daß ein IchTräger jemals in ihm Platz greifen kann; diese Geister der Persönlichkeit waren es, die dem Menschenleibe damals die Form gegeben haben, die von ihrer Persönlichkeit ausgegangen ist. Zweitens gaben sie dem Menschen aber auch die Möglichkeit, die Selbstsucht zu entwickeln. Durch die Einwirkung der Geister der Persönlichkeit empfing der Menschenleib wie in der Keimanlage die Fähigkeit, sich als eine freie Persönlichkeit zu entwickeln, gleichzeitig aber auch die Selbstsucht, den Egoismus in sich auszubilden. Nicht einen Vortrag oder einen Zyklus, sondern Jahre würde ich brauchen, wenn ich Ihnen hier alle Einzelheiten beschreiben wollte. Wir können also daher nur Etappen, Stufen betrachten, und zwar wollen wir sieben solche Stufen in der Saturnentwickelung denken, die unter sich verschieden sind.
Bei der ersten Stufe müssen Sie sich vorstellen, daß noch nichts da war von physischer Wärme, sondern daß sich diese erst vorbereitet hat. Bloß Seelisches war da, seelische Wärme war vorhanden, und erst in der Mitte der Saturnentwickelung war dann der physische Menschenleib, aus physischem Wärmestoff gebildet, vorhanden. Dieser menschliche Wärmeleib löst sich dann am Ende der Saturnentwickelung wieder auf. Wir haben sieben Etappen: drei Vorstufen, eine physische Wärmestufe und drei absteigende Stufen, und jede von diesen sieben Stufen hat wieder sieben Unterabteilungen, die wir hier aber lieber weglassen wollen, und auf die wir bei der Erdenentwickelung dann zurückkommen wollen. Die heutigen theosophischen Bücher sprechen von ihnen als von Runden und Globen.
Nun wollen wir aber fragen: Woher kam denn die Substanz, aus welcher der Menschenleib gebildet wurde? Hohe geistige Wesenheiten waren es, die ihr eigenes Wesen ausfließen ließen, es herniederträufelten als Substanz für den physischen Menschenleib: es waren die Geister des Willens oder die Throne, die das Opfer brachten, ihre eigene Wesenheit ausfließen zu lassen. Also wir haben auf dem Saturn die Geister des Willens oder die Throne, welche die Substanz zum Menschenleib geben, dann die Geister der Persönlichkeit, die ihn während ihrer Menschheitsstufe bewohnen, und den Menschen selbst als physischen Keim. Die Saturnentwickelung geht nun so vor sich, daß wir den Beginn, den Höhepunkt und das Abfluten uns vorzustellen haben. Darnach geht das Ganze durch ein Pralaya hindurch. Wir können uns den Prozeß etwa so wie beim Pflanzenwesen denken. Der Keim wird in die Erde gelegt, verfault und rettet die Form in ein neues Dasein hinüber. Wie nun zwischen der ersten und der zweiten Pflanze ein Zwischenzustand, ein verborgener Zustand ist, ebenso ist es beim Planeten. Man nennt diesen Zustand das Pralaya. Der Unterschied ist nur der, daß die Pflanze eine der alten ähnliche Wiederholung dann hervorbringt, der Planet aber eine Höherentwickelung dann erreicht hat. Sein Weg ist der einer Spirale wie beim Menschen. Den sichtbaren Zustand des Planeten nennt die indische Theosophie ein Manvantara. Bei der Pflanze ist dies ihre Entwickelung über der Erde. So gehen auch die Planeten durch ein offenbares Dasein und durch ein verborgenes Dasein hindurch. Dieses letztere nennt man einen Weltenschlaf.
Nach diesem Weltenschlaf des Saturn, als er aus dem Dunkel wieder heraustrat in einer neuen Verwandlungsform, da war es die alte Sonne, die da nun erstand. Der Unterschied zwischen Saturn und Sonne ist der, daß in ihren mittleren Zuständen die Wärmesubstanz des Saturn sich zu einem Luft- oder Gaszustand verdichtet hatte. Die Wärme behält die Sonne, aber sie entwickelt noch etwas dazu, die Luft, so daß wir nun also Wärme und Luft auf der Sonne haben. Und noch etwas: es wird Licht auf der Sonne. Der Saturn bestand aus dunkler Wärme, der zweite Planet, die Sonne, besteht aus Licht — das Gas brennt -, Wärmeäther und Luft. Durch den Saturn ist in die Evolution hineingekommen ein für allemal die Anlage, daß der Keim zum physischen Menschenleib da ist. Jetzt, auf der Sonne, kommt etwas Neues dazu. Wie hineingegossen von geistigen Wesenheiten ist nun in diese Substanz der Ätherleib: der zweite planetarische Zustand, in dem der Mensch nun erlangt hat den Wert einer Pflanze. Leben ist in ihm. Durch diese Eingliederung des Ätherleibes hat sich aber auch der physische Leib des Menschen verändert. Er behält nicht die Eiform der Saturnzeit bei, sondern er wird in sich gegliedert. Er ist nun ein vibrierendes Wärme-Ei, das in Lichtgebilden aufglänzt und abglimmt und Einbuchtungen hat. Der Ätherleib bearbeitet nun den physischen Leib.
Während beim Saturn die Throne die Substanz des physischen Leibes aus sich selbst ausgegossen haben, sind es jetzt andere Wesenheiten, welche dazu die Substanz als ihr großes Opfer ausfließen lassen: es sind die Geister der Weisheit, Herrschaften oder Kyriotetes genannt. Das schwerere Opfer haben die Throne gebracht. Wäre von ihnen nicht die Grundlage geschaffen worden, so hätten die Geister der Weisheit nicht ihre Arbeit beginnen können.
Auf der Sonne haben nun auch wieder Wesenheiten ihre Menschheitsstufe durchgemacht. Es sind die Erzengel oder Feuergeister, Archangeloi in der christlichen Esoterik genannt. Stellvertretend bewohnten sie den Menschenleib und erhielten so ihr Ich-Bewußtsein.
Hier ist jetzt etwas zu erwähnen, auf das zu achten ist. Wäre der Saturn nach dem Pralaya gleich als Sonne hervorgegangen, dann hätten die Menschenleiber nicht den Ätherleib in sich aufnehmen können. Der neue Planet, die Sonne, mußte daher zuerst eine kurze Wiederholung des Saturn durchmachen. Die Wesen mußten gleichsam ihre alte Form wieder annehmen.
Was für Wesen gab es nun noch auf dieser Sonne? Es gab dort gewisse Geister der Persönlichkeit, die nicht Menschen wurden auf dem Saturn, denen es nicht gelungen war, ihr Ich-Bewußtsein auf dem Saturn zu erlangen. Diese mußten das nachholen auf der Sonne. Sie mußten nun auf der Sonne das nachholen, standen also da noch auf der gleichen Stufe wie ihre Genossen auf dem Saturn. Sie konnten also auf der Sonne gleichsam nur in einer Schale wohnen, einem mineralischen Leib ohne Ätherleib, die nicht von einem Ätherleib durchzogen war. Es mußte also auf der Sonne noch einmal ein Gebilde entstehen, das nur aus dem physischen Leibe bestand. Es gab also niedrigere Gebilde neben denen, die aus physischem und Ätherleib bestanden, und das sind die Vorgänger unserer heutigen Tiere. Auf der Sonne haben wir also zwei Reiche: ein Menschenreich und das Reich der Wesen, die auf der Sonne auf der Stufe der Saturnentwickelung waren, das Tierreich. Zwei Reiche haben wir auf der Sonne, ein Menschenreich und ein Tierreich. Die Nachkommen des letzteren haben wir in den heutigen höheren Tieren.
Nun geht die Sonne auch wieder über in eine Art Weltennacht und wird in einem dritten Verwandlungszustand wiederum geboren als der alte Mond, der zunächst fähig ist, die früheren Zustände zu wiederholen, denen sich die wäßrige Substanz hinzufügt. Bei der Abspaltung geht mit der Sonne das hinaus, was Wärme und Licht ist. Auch die hohen Wesen gehen mit den feinen Essenzen hinaus. Das wässerig Gewordene geht als Mond hervor und wird immer dichter und dichter und wird eine Art Nebenplanet. Auf dem Monde haben wir also damals Wärme, Licht und Wasser. Der Mensch hat seinen Äther- oder Lichtleib wie auf der Sonne, das Neue, das hinzukommt auf dem Monde, ist dasjenige, was wir als Ton oder Schall bezeichnen können. Um sich das besser vorstellen zu können, will ich Ihnen ein Beispiel geben. Denken Sie an eine mit Staub bedeckte Metallplatte, über die mit dem Fiedelbogen gestrichen wird: der Staub ordnet sich zu bestimmten Figuren, den Klangfiguren des Physikers. Was wir heute als Ton erkennen, ist die physische Ausgestaltung des Tones. Das Wasser auf dem Mond war durchzogen von dem Ton und war dadurch in eine regelmäßige Bewegung gebracht. Der physische Leib der Wesen kommt dadurch auf dem Monde in ein inneres Erleben; es bilden sich in der Form Glieder, zum Beispiel die Leber; das aber vergeht wieder. Es ist ein Bilden und Wiederauflösen von Organen, ein Erleben in Figuren und Rhythmen. Dies macht die Leiber reif, die Astralsubstanz in sich aufzunehmen. Solches Einschlagen des Urtones in die wässerige Substanz, das drückt die Bibel also aus: Gott ordnete alles nach Maß, Zahl und Gewicht. Das Wesentliche, das Neue der Mondenentwickelung ist also das innere Erbeben, das wie einschlägt in die physische Materie. Von diesem innern Erbeben, geordnet in regelmäßigem Zahlenrhythmus, davon haben Sie sich den alten Mond durchdrungen zu denken. Früher, auf dem Saturn, waren es wärmeartige Gebilde, die den Menschenleib bildeten, später, auf der alten Sonne, waren es luftartige Gebilde, wie eine Luftspiegelung erscheinend, einer Fata Morgana gleich. Auf dem Monde nun ist die Substanz wässerig, durchwogt, von innerem Erbeben in Bewegung gebracht. Innerlich sich verwandelnde Gliederungen entstanden durch dieses Erbeben; von denen war der Menschenleib durchstrahlt. Wie ein vorübergehendes Werden und Wiedervergehen müssen Sie sich das denken: so wurde im Menschenleib eine Leber oder eine Lunge gebildet und wieder aufgelöst. Das waren also die Zustände auf dem alten Mond. Die Bibel drückt das so aus: Gott hat einst alles geordnet nach Zahl, Maß und Gewicht. - Damit ist das innere Erbeben gemeint. Innerhalb des alten Mondes entstehen nun zuerst wieder die früheren Gebilde des Menschenleibes, es bildet sich wieder der physische und der Ätherleib. Warum? Weil auf dem alten Monde wieder zuerst die Wiederholung von Saturn und Sonne stattfindet; dann erst entstand der eigentliche alte Mond. In den physischen Menschenleib, der nun einerseits das Wässerige in sich hatte, andererseits durch das innere Erbeben durchzogen war von dem Urton und dem Ätherleib, lassen nun einfließen die Geister der Bewegung, Mächte oder Dynamis genannt, den menschlichen Astralleib. Sie opfern, wie die Geister des Willens auf dem Saturn und die Geister der Weisheit auf der Sonne, so opfern sie jetzt aus ihrer eigenen Substanz heraus den menschlichen Astralleib. So ist die Erde fortwährend in fortschreitender Entwickelung, und ebenso der Mensch selber, der sie bewohnt.
So haben Sie den physischen Leib sich auf dem Saturn entwickeln sehen. Durch die drei Verwandlungen hindurch — Saturn, Sonne, Mond - ist er nun so geworden, daß er die dritte Vollkommenheitsstufe erreicht hatte. Dieser menschliche physische Leib kommt nun auf dem Monde noch näher seiner heutigen Gestalt. Seine fernere Entwickelung, die seinem Astralleib notwendig war, die hätte der Mensch auf der Erde aber nicht erhalten können, wenn nicht in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt eine Abspaltung stattgefunden hätte. Es bleibt eine Grundsubstanz des Planeten, des alten Mondes, zurück, und ein Teil geht heraus, der dann die Grundsubstanz umgibt, den Körper seiner Grundsubstanz umkreist. Nun haben wir erstens Saturn, zweitens Sonne, drittens Mond. Das Beste der Substanzen und Wesenheiten hat sich jetzt abgespaltet in einem Grundkörper. Er tritt als Sonne aus ihm heraus in unserer Erdenzeit und steht in seinem Range höher als ein Planet, er wird zum Fixstern. Und ein anderer Körper trennt sich davon ab, der ein Planet bleibt. Die heutige Sonne ist auch erst eine Sonne geworden, einst war sie ein Planet. Wenn Sie die heutige Sonne, den heutigen Mond und unsere Erde in ihrer Substanz und ihren Wesen in einem großen Topf zusammenrühren würden, dann hätten Sie die alte Sonne; rührten Sie Erde und Mond zusammen, dann hätten Sie den alten Mond.
Im Verlaufe der Menschheitsentwickelung löst sich also ab von dem Planeten Erde unsere Sonne. Mit ihr gehen die besten Substanzen und Wesenheiten heraus aus der Erde. Der Sonne zur Seite geht das Wässerige, das immer dichter und dichter wird. Die dichten Formen sind die Träger der Wesenheiten, die den alten Mond bewohnen; einen Schauplatz in Absonderung wählen sich nun die Menschen aus. Ein Fixstern, eine Sonne entsteht immer dadurch, daß eine Art Avancement eines Planeten stattfindet. Während dieser Menschheitsentwickelung waren nun nicht nur die Menschen da und so entwickelt, daß sie die drei Leiber, physischen Leib, Ätherleib und Astralleib eingegliedert hatten. Es waren auch Wesen da, die zurückgeblieben waren.
Die Menschen, die auf dem Monde ihre Menschheitsstufe durchgemacht hatten, das waren die Engel, in der christlichen Esoterik Angeloi genannt, in Indien auch lunarische Pitris. Diese Menschen hatten ein anderes Bewußtsein als die Menschen heute. Nun waren aber auf dem alten Monde auch noch andere Wesenheiten. Da waren gewisse Erzengel, die auf der Sonne zurückgeblieben waren und nun ihre Menschheitsstufe nachholen mußten auf dem Monde, dann waren Wesenheiten da, welche die Stufe der Geister der Persönlichkeit, also die Saturnstufe der Menschheit, nun auf dem alten Monde erst erreicht hatten.
Die Erzengel, die auf der Sonne zurückgeblieben waren, die bildeten als Menschenleiber Gebilde, die nur einen physischen und einen Ätherleib hatten. Das war dann ein Reich unter den Menschen, ein Reich, das sich fortsetzte auf Erden als Tierreich; sie sind die Vorläufer dieser physischen Leiber der heutigen Tierwelt. Und solche Wesenheiten, die auf dem Monde gar nur einen physischen Leib hatten, das sind die Vorläufer des heutigen Pflanzenreichs. Also ein Menschen-, ein Tier- und ein Pflanzenreich gab es auf dem alten Monde. Auf dem Saturn nur ein Menschenreich, auf der Sonne ein Menschen- und ein Tierreich, und auf dem Monde haben wir sogar ein Menschen-, ein Tier- und ein Pflanzenreich. Das Mineralreich ist das letzte der Reiche, die in der ganzen kosmischen Entwickelung entstanden sind. Der Mensch ist das älteste Reich in der Menschheitsentwickelung, er war schon da, che es eine Erde gab. Auf der Erde erhält er dann noch zu seinen drei Leibern hinzu das vierte Glied seiner Wesenheit, den Träger des Ich.
The Formation and Transformations of the Physical Human Body
Today, following on from yesterday's consideration of the development of humanity within certain narrow limits, we want to go back to the long-past epochs of development and consider what is connected with it. Before we discuss the fact of reincarnation, which we could immediately follow up on in this context, and before we discuss the questions of human destiny and the law of karma, let us go back to even earlier times and let our gaze wander over great periods of human evolution.
Modern man presents himself to us as a structure consisting of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and the I—the bearer of the self and of true independence. It is not the I or the astral body that are the most perfect members of the human being because they are spiritually higher, but rather the physical body. It is the most perfect member of the human being, a structure, a composition of the most wonderful details. What a miraculous structure is this physical human body! The astral body is more spiritual, but less perfect; it is the bearer of joy and pain, of instinct, desire, and passion. Why, then, is the physical body more perfect? Consider the human physical heart. What a miraculous structure it is, that it can withstand all attacks throughout its entire life! And it is the same with all the other organs of the physical body: wisdom speaks from them. And how is it with the astral body in relation to this heart? It does not always behave wisely. The astral body needs means of enjoyment out of its longing for enjoyment and thus continually mistreats the physical body; it continually attacks the physical heart, and the latter resists it. Why? Because the construction of the physical body took much longer in the past than that of the other bodies. The physical human body is the oldest member of the human being, and therefore also the most perfect. A fine host of perfect beings have already worked on it. Everything that is physical, everything that is sensual, has developed out of the spirit, has worked its way down from the spirit to its physical form. The first thing that existed of the human being in the physical world was the structure of the human physical body. At that time, there was no seed of the etheric body, the astral body, or the ego carrier in the physical world.
Everything in the world is in development, not only human beings, but also a planet like our Earth. Like human beings, our Earth has also undergone other planetary incarnations. We call the first of these Saturn, the second the Sun, and the third the Moon. Here we must disregard the Moon as we know it today; it is only a remnant, a remnant, a slag of the old Moon.
Let us now see why our Moon has been called “Moon” since ancient times. In doing so, we must remember that the naming of things by the ancient occultists was absolutely not random, but something deeply meaningful. The name given to a thing or a being was always organically linked to what the being was supposed to express. The previous planetary state of our Earth was therefore the old “moon”; the one before that was the old “sun,” not the sun of today; the latter is like a memory of that old sun. First we come to that world body to which it is [still] possible today to look back with occult means: it is “Saturn,” the old Saturn, of which we have spoken often. I will now sketchily describe this old Saturn in its development. Let us first clarify what the occultist considers to be the basic elements of our external world. In ancient occultism, a distinction was made between the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire or heat. For today's physicist, this no longer makes much sense; what modern science calls elements no longer corresponds to what the occultist understands by them. The modern term “state of aggregation” is roughly equivalent to “element.” The occultist calls everything that is solid at today's temperatures on Earth “earthy” or “solid.” A quartz crystal, for example, is “earth” for the occultist at today's temperatures. Everything liquid, including liquid metals and so on, is “water” for them, and everything gaseous is called “air.” And what today's physicists see as a state of the three aggregate compositions, fire, is the fourth element for occultists. I am well aware that it is a real abomination to science to regard fire not merely as a state, but as something equal to earth, water, and air. In occultism, one may boldly imagine that heat is something of an even finer substance than the other three: earth, water, and air. You would have found nothing on Saturn but heat or fire; there was no earth, water, or air. If you had been able to observe this with clairvoyant vision at that time, by placing a chair in outer space and observing Saturn's development, you would have been able to perceive only heat, and at first this would have been only spiritual heat. Of all the beings that are on Earth today, only humans existed on Saturn; there was no mineral, plant, or animal kingdom. Under today's conditions, humans need the three kingdoms for their development; in the state they were in then, they did not need them. The whole human being existed, so to speak, only as a heat formation. Nothing, nothing else was there of the human being. Now imagine taking away everything you perceive physically in today's human being, even the air they breathe, and leaving nothing of them except what flows through them today as their present blood warmth, but shaped as if you were to draw the blood system today: only such human beings existed on the old Saturn, nothing else. For the occultist, a celestial body is only a composition of beings. Even the Earth is nothing more than a composition of mineral, plant, animal, and human beings.
The consciousness of the ancient Saturn people was already in development. It was dull, but comprehensive. Today's bright daytime consciousness has only become possible on Earth. The people on ancient Saturn had a very strange, dull state of consciousness. You know that humans are unconscious when they sleep. Now take the plant, just the physical plant, without the entities hidden behind it: there you have a state of sleep that is even deeper, a dreamless sleep. The plant is a deeply sleeping being. And now imagine a state of sleep that is even deeper, even duller, the deep trance consciousness, and then you have Saturn consciousness. I will describe it to you by describing a kind of abnormal state of the present day—a being that has remained in earlier, now abnormal conditions—using an observed example: A girl who, until the age of eighteen, was completely unaccustomed to any alcohol consumption, is tempted by an event to quickly down a few glasses of red wine. Due to other conditions of her organism, this made such an impression on her that she was as if dead. Someone gave her a pencil, and she began to draw all sorts of things and write names next to them. She had no idea what she was doing. She was like a machine; she had no life, no consciousness. If you now compare what this girl wrote down with what is written in theosophical books about planets and what is today's understanding of the structure of the universe, you will find that what this girl wrote down is indeed a very strange cosmology, but it does correspond in some respects to occult cosmology. It was in a state deeper than ordinary sleep. In this state, the being is capable of going far, far beyond the earth in its dull consciousness and expressing cosmic things. The occultist knows that such a consciousness exists in physical stone: dull and comprehensive, stone without the corresponding egos, and that if stone could express itself in this way, it would do so. This consciousness encompasses vast areas, but it is dull. Such was the consciousness of human beings on ancient Saturn.
Saturn itself is a being that is unconscious of itself, or rather, it had a lower consciousness that can be described as carrying within itself a mirror image of the entire cosmos, and that it would have been capable of drawing it. To understand this, we must consider something else. So while human beings found on Saturn the place where the first beginnings of their physical bodies could form, Saturn was at the same time the scene on which other beings could develop, beings who today stand far, far above human beings. Let us clarify this with a statement made by an Egyptian sage to a Greek. He said: “You Greeks will always remain big children. You know nothing of the greatest mystery, that gods were once human beings!” These beings then no longer need to enter into physical existence.
So, on ancient Saturn, humans were like a kind of mineral; they also had a consciousness like that of minerals. But beings that are now far above the human level lived in the human body. These are the primordial beginnings, or archai, or spirits of personality. They went through their human stage on Saturn. They were not human beings as we are today; they only used the physical human body to confront the world, to experience their stage of humanity, to attain ego-consciousness. These exalted beings therefore had their ego-consciousness on Saturn, and they needed the human body as a kind of vehicle, which served as their physical dwelling place. Certain beings permeated the human physical body and imbued it with their qualities, and human beings today owe two things to these beings. First, the ability for an ego carrier to ever take up residence within them; it was these spirits of personality that gave the human body its form at that time, which emanated from their personality. Second, they also gave human beings the possibility of developing selfishness. Through the influence of the spirits of personality, the human body received, as in the germ, the ability to develop as a free personality, but at the same time also the selfishness to develop egoism within itself. I would need not a lecture or a series of lectures, but years, if I wanted to describe all the details here. We can therefore only consider stages, steps, and we will consider seven such steps in the development of Saturn, which are different from each other.
At the first stage, you must imagine that there was still no physical warmth, but that this was only being prepared. Only the soul was there, soul warmth was present, and it was only in the middle of Saturn's development that the physical human body, formed from physical warmth, came into being. This human warmth body then dissolves again at the end of Saturn's development. We have seven stages: three preliminary stages, a physical heat stage, and three descending stages, and each of these seven stages has seven subdivisions, which we will omit here, but to which we will return when we discuss the development of the Earth. Today's theosophical books refer to them as rounds and globes.
But now we want to ask: Where did the substance come from that formed the human body? It was high spiritual beings who let their own essence flow out, dripping it down as substance for the physical human body: it was the spirits of the will, or the thrones, who made the sacrifice of letting their own essence flow out. So on Saturn we have the spirits of will or the thrones, which give the substance to the human body, then the spirits of personality, which inhabit it during its human stage, and the human being himself as the physical germ. The Saturn evolution now proceeds in such a way that we must imagine the beginning, the climax, and the ebbing away. After that, the whole thing goes through a pralaya. We can think of the process as being similar to that of a plant. The seed is placed in the earth, decays, and carries the form over into a new existence. Just as there is an intermediate state, a hidden state, between the first and second plants, so it is with the planets. This state is called pralaya. The only difference is that the plant then produces a repetition similar to the old one, but the planet has then reached a higher stage of development. Its path is that of a spiral, as with humans. Indian theosophy calls the visible state of the planet a Manvantara. In the case of the plant, this is its development on Earth. Thus, the planets also pass through an apparent existence and a hidden existence. The latter is called a world sleep.
After this world sleep of Saturn, when it emerged again from the darkness in a new form of transformation, it was the old sun that now arose. The difference between Saturn and the sun is that in their middle states, the heat substance of Saturn had condensed into an air or gas state. The sun retains the heat, but it also develops something else, air, so that we now have heat and air on the sun. And something else: light is created on the sun. Saturn consisted of dark heat, the second planet, the sun, consists of light — the gas burns —, heat ether, and air. Through Saturn, the predisposition for the physical human body entered evolution once and for all. Now, on the sun, something new is added. As if poured in by spiritual beings, the etheric body is now present in this substance: the second planetary state, in which the human being has now attained the value of a plant. Life is within it. Through this incorporation of the etheric body, however, the physical body of the human being has also changed. It does not retain the egg shape of the Saturn period, but becomes structured within itself. It is now a vibrating heat egg that glows and dims in light formations and has indentations. The etheric body now works on the physical body.
Whereas on Saturn the Thrones poured out the substance of the physical body from themselves, now it is other beings who pour out the substance as their great sacrifice: they are the spirits of wisdom, called Lordships or Kyriotetes. The Thrones made the greater sacrifice. If they had not laid the foundation, the spirits of wisdom could not have begun their work.
On the Sun, beings have now once again passed through the human stage. They are the archangels or fire spirits, called Archangeloi in Christian esotericism. They inhabited the human body as representatives and thus received their ego consciousness.
Here we must mention something that deserves attention. If Saturn had emerged as the sun immediately after the Pralaya, human bodies would not have been able to absorb the etheric body. The new planet, the sun, therefore had to undergo a brief repetition of Saturn. The beings had to take on their old form again, as it were.
What kind of beings were still on this sun? There were certain spirits of personality who had not become human beings on Saturn, who had not succeeded in gaining their sense of self on Saturn. They had to make up for this on the sun. They now had to make up for this on the sun, so they were still at the same stage as their companions on Saturn. They could therefore only dwell on the sun in a shell, as it were, a mineral body without an etheric body, which was not permeated by an etheric body. A structure had therefore to arise once again on the sun, consisting only of the physical body. There were thus lower structures alongside those consisting of physical and etheric bodies, and these are the predecessors of our present-day animals. So on the sun we have two realms: a human realm and the realm of beings that were on the sun at the stage of Saturn's development, the animal realm. We have two realms on the sun, a human realm and an animal realm. The descendants of the latter are found in today's higher animals.
Now the sun also passes into a kind of world night and is reborn in a third state of transformation as the old moon, which is initially capable of repeating the earlier states, to which the watery substance is added. When the sun separates, what is heat and light goes out with it. The higher beings also depart with the fine essences. What has become watery emerges as the moon and becomes denser and denser, becoming a kind of secondary planet. So at that time we had warmth, light, and water on the moon. Human beings have their etheric or light body as on the sun; what is new and added on the moon is what we can call sound or tone. To help you imagine this better, let me give you an example. Think of a metal plate covered with dust over which a violin bow is drawn: the dust arranges itself into certain figures, the sound figures of the physicist. What we recognize today as sound is the physical manifestation of sound. The water on the moon was permeated by sound and was thus set in regular motion. The physical body of beings thus enters into an inner experience on the moon; limbs form in shape, for example, the liver; but this passes away again. It is a formation and dissolution of organs, an experience in figures and rhythms. This makes the bodies ripe to take in the astral substance. The Bible expresses this striking of the primordial tone into the watery substance: God ordered everything according to measure, number, and weight. The essential, the new aspect of the Moon's development is thus the inner earthquake that strikes into physical matter. You must think of the ancient Moon as permeated by this inner earthquake, ordered in a regular numerical rhythm. In earlier times, on Saturn, it was heat-like formations that formed the human body; later, on the old Sun, it was air-like formations, appearing like a mirage, like a Fata Morgana. On the Moon, the substance is now watery, undulating, set in motion by an inner earthquake. Internally transforming structures arose from these tremors, through which the human body was permeated. You must think of this as a temporary becoming and passing away: thus, a liver or a lung was formed in the human body and then dissolved again. Such were the conditions on the old moon. The Bible expresses this as follows: God once ordered everything according to number, measure, and weight. This refers to the inner convulsion. Within the old moon, the earlier structures of the human body now arise again, and the physical and etheric bodies are formed once more. Why? Because on the old moon, the repetition of Saturn and the sun takes place first; only then did the actual old moon come into being. Into the physical human body, which now contained water on the one hand and was permeated by the primordial sound and the etheric body on the other, the spirits of movement, called powers or dynamis, now flow in and form the human astral body. Just as the spirits of will sacrificed themselves on Saturn and the spirits of wisdom on the Sun, so now they sacrifice the human astral body out of their own substance. Thus, the Earth is in a state of continuous, progressive development, and so is the human being who inhabits it.
You have seen how the physical body developed on Saturn. Through the three transformations — Saturn, Sun, Moon — it has now become such that it has reached the third stage of perfection. This human physical body now comes even closer to its present form on the Moon. Its further development, which was necessary for its astral body, could not have been achieved by human beings on Earth unless a separation had taken place at a certain point in time. A basic substance of the planet, the old Moon, remains behind, and a part emerges which then surrounds the basic substance, orbiting the body of its basic substance. Now we have, first, Saturn; second, the sun; third, the moon. The best of the substances and beings has now separated into a fundamental body. It emerges from it as the sun in our Earth time and stands higher in rank than a planet; it becomes a fixed star. And another body separates from it, which remains a planet. Today's sun also first became a sun; it was once a planet. If you were to mix today's sun, today's moon, and our earth in their substance and essence in a large pot, you would have the old sun; if you mixed the earth and the moon together, you would have the old moon.
In the course of human evolution, our sun thus separates from the planet earth. With it, the best substances and beings leave the Earth. The watery element, which becomes denser and denser, moves toward the sun. The dense forms are the carriers of the beings that inhabit the old moon; humans now choose a place of separation for themselves. A fixed star, a sun, always comes into being through a kind of advancement of a planet. During this development of humanity, it was not only humans who were present and developed in such a way that they had integrated the three bodies, the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. There were also beings who had remained behind.
The humans who had passed through their human stage on the moon were the angels, called Angeloi in Christian esotericism and also lunar Pitris in India. These people had a different consciousness than people today. But there were also other beings on the old moon. There were certain archangels who had remained behind on the sun and now had to catch up on their stage of human development on the moon, and then there were beings who had only just reached the stage of personality spirits, i.e., the Saturn stage of humanity, on the old moon.
The archangels who had remained on the sun formed human bodies that had only a physical and an etheric body. This was then a realm among humans, a realm that continued on earth as the animal kingdom; they are the precursors of the physical bodies of today's animal world. And such beings, which had only a physical body on the moon, are the precursors of today's plant kingdom. So there was a human kingdom, an animal kingdom, and a plant kingdom on the old moon. On Saturn there was only a human kingdom, on the sun there was a human kingdom and an animal kingdom, and on the moon we even have a human kingdom, an animal kingdom, and a plant kingdom. The mineral kingdom is the last of the kingdoms that arose in the entire cosmic evolution. Man is the oldest kingdom in human evolution; he was already there before the Earth existed. On Earth, he then receives, in addition to his three bodies, the fourth member of his being, the bearer of the I.