Moon
200
Just as true as heat is an illusion, and as behind it is sacrifice, as gas or air is an illusion, and behind it is giving virtue. So, water as substance, as external reality is only a sensual illusion, a reflection, and what exists in truth is resignation of any entities to what they receive from other entities. One would like to say that water can trickle in the world only if resignation is the basis.
201
Everything that was in the first Saturn first appears again as a world structure.
202
Then the inflow of the life body begins again, for which the physical body has now made itself ripe. This inflow happens again like the Saturn repetition in three epochs, which are to be distinguished from each other.
203
On Saturn the physical body of the human being was a heat body; on the Sun a condensation to the gas state or "air" occurred. Now, as the astral flows in during the lunar evolution, at a certain moment the physical reaches a further degree of condensation, it comes into a state which can be compared to that of a present-day liquid. One can call this state "water". But this does not mean our present water, but any liquid form of existence.
204
On the moon there are formations which are only at the stage of Saturn and those that have reached only the solar stage. Thereby two other kingdoms emerge beside the properly developed human kingdom. One of them consists of beings who have stopped on the Saturn stage, who therefore have only a physical body, which even on the moon cannot yet become the bearer of an independent life body. This is the lowest lunar kingdom. A second kingdom consists of beings who have remained at the sun level and therefore do not mature enough to integrate an independent astral body on the moon. These form a kingdom between the above-mentioned and the regularly advanced human kingdom.
205
One world body becomes two. One of them is taken up by certain higher beings, who were before more intimately connected with the unified world-body, and who make it their dwelling-place. The other, on the other hand, is occupied by the human being, the two lower realms characterized above and certain higher entities which have not passed over to the first world body. One of the two world bodies with the higher beings appears like a reborn but refined sun; the other is now the actual new formation, the "old moon", as the third planetary embodiment of our earth, after the Saturn and sun embodiment.
206
Certain entities, which were adapted to the lunar body, seized the element of will (the inheritance of the thrones) available to them and thus developed a life of their own, which is independent of the life of the sun. Besides the experiences of the moon, which are only under the influence of the sun, independent experiences of the moon arise as it were states of revolt or rebellion against the sun beings. And the various kingdoms created on the sun and moon, especially the kingdom of the human ancestors, were drawn into these states. The lunar body thus includes in itself, spiritually and materially two kinds of life: that which stands in intimate connection with the solar life, and that which has "fallen away" from it and goes independent ways. This division into two kinds of life is expressed in all the following processes of the lunar embodiment.
207
The whole basic mass of the moon is formed from a semi-living substance, which is in a sometimes sluggish, sometimes lively movement. A mineral mass in the sense of the rocks and the earth components, on which the present man walks around, does not yet exist. One could speak of a kingdom of plant minerals. Only one has to imagine that the whole basic body of the moon consists of this plant mineral substance, as today the earth consists of rocks, arable earth etc..
Food substances were taken by the human being from the kingdom of the animal-plants. One has to think of these animal plants as floating - or also slightly grown - in an element surrounding them, like the present lower animals live in the water or the land animals in the air. But this element is neither water nor air in the present-day sense, but something in the middle of both, a kind of dense vapor in which the most diverse substances move to and fro as if dissolved in the most diverse currents. The animal-plants only appear like condensed regular forms of this element, physically often only little different from their environment. The respiration process is present beside the nourishment process. It is not like on earth, but like an intake and outflow of heat.
208
209
210
During the second of these epochs the human being is so far adapted to the new lunar conditions that the "spirits of movement" can put into practice the ability they have acquired. It consists in the fact that they let the astral body flow into the human beings out of their own being. They have prepared themselves for this work during the evolution of the sun, and in the interval of rest between the sun and the moon they have transformed what they have prepared into the ability indicated.
211
These "spirits of personality" have meanwhile risen to a level where they have the "consciousness of inspiration". They are able to perceive not only the inner states of other beings in pictures - as it was with the former picture consciousness - but as in a spiritual tone language the interior of such beings themselves.
212
The "spirits of fire" have risen to the level of consciousness which the "spirits of personality" held on the sun.
213
In this period the "sons of life" reach their human stage. On the moon man cannot yet use his senses, which were already developed on Saturn, for his own perception of external objects. But these senses become instruments of the "sons of life" on the stage of the moon. They make use of them in order to perceive through them. These senses, which belong to the physical human body, thus enter into a reciprocal relationship with the "sons of life". They not only make use of them, but they also perfect them.
214
The physical human being repeatedly passes through the stages of Saturn's development, only under completely changed conditions. On Saturn only the forces of a heat body played in him, now there are also those of the developed gas body. But the latter do not appear immediately at the beginning of the moon's development. There everything is as if the human being consisted only of heat substance and within it the gas forces were dormant.
215
It begins to follow with sensations the processes which take place in it through the possession of a life body and which were still plant-like during the development of the sun, to feel pleasure and displeasure through them. This remains, however, a changing inner flooding up and down of such pleasure and displeasure, until the "spirits of form" intervene. Then these changing feelings are transformed in such a way that in the human being appears what can be understood as the first trace of desire. The being strives for a repetition of what once gave pleasure, and it tries to avoid what has been felt as antipathic.
216
The physical human body now gradually assumes a form composed of three kinds of substantial structures The densest is a "water body"; this is traversed by air currents, and through all this heat effects pass.
217
Man, himself can be called animal-man. He had in his nature the components of the other two kingdoms. But his being was completely permeated by a life body and an astral body, on which the powers of the higher beings, emanating from the separated sun, worked. Thus, his form was ennobled. While the "spirits of form" gave him a form by which he was adapted to the life of the moon, the spirits of the sun made him an entity which was lifted above this life. He had the power to ennoble his own nature with the abilities given to him by these spirits, even to raise that which was related to the lower realms to a higher level.
218
The "spirits of personality" affect the astral body, the "fire spirits" the etheric body of this human being. The astral body thus acquires the character of personality. It now not only experiences pleasure and pain in itself, but it also relates them to itself. He does not yet come to a complete I-consciousness, which says to itself "I am here"; but he feels carried and protected by other entities of his environment. The "fire spirits" now have an effect on the etheric body. Under their influence the movement of the forces in this body becomes more and more an inner life activity. What arises finds a physical expression in a movement of juices and in growth phenomena. The gaseous substances have condensed into watery ones; one can speak of a kind of nourishment in the sense that what is taken in from outside is transformed and processed inside. If one thinks of something in the middle between nourishment and respiration in the present sense, then one gets an idea of what happened in this direction at that time.
219
One imagines, in order to have a clearer conception of the consciousness of the moon men, that these are as embedded in the vaporous environment described above. In this dark element the most manifold processes take place. Substances combine, substances separate from each other. Parts are condensed, others are diluted. All this happens in such a way that human beings do not see or hear it directly, but it evokes images in the human consciousness. These images are comparable to those of the present dream consciousness.
This picture-consciousness is by no means such that through it only external physical processes are visualized, but through the pictures the spiritual beings behind the physical facts and their activities are also presented.
220
The "spirits of the personality" have an effect on the astral body, the "fire spirits" on the etheric body of this human being. The astral body thus acquires the character of personality. It now not only experiences pleasure and pain in itself, but it also relates them to itself. He does not yet come to a complete I-consciousness, which says to itself "I am here"; but he feels carried and protected by other entities of his environment. The "fire spirits" now have an effect on the etheric body. Under their influence the movement of the forces in this body becomes more and more an inner life activity. What arises finds a physical expression in a movement of juices and in growth phenomena. The gaseous substances have condensed into watery ones; one can speak of a kind of nourishment in the sense that what is taken in from outside is transformed and processed inside. If one thinks of something in the middle between nourishment and respiration in the present sense, then one gets an idea of what happened in this direction at that time. There is an alternation in the states of consciousness which can be compared with the change of sleep and waking in the present man as well as with his life between birth and death on the one hand and the more spiritual existence between death and a new birth on the other hand. The waking up on the moon, when the solar period gradually ceases, could be characterized as midway between the waking up of the present man every morning and his being born. And likewise, the gradual dulling of the consciousness at the approach of the solar period resembles a middle state between falling asleep and dying.
221
The sun and the moon have separated from each other in such a way as it was necessary for the production of the right dwelling places of corresponding beings. But this determination of the material and its forces by the spirit goes much further. The beings themselves also cause certain movements of the world bodies, certain revolutions of these around each other. Thereby these bodies come into changing positions relative to each other. And if the position changes, the position of the one world body to the other, then also the effects of their corresponding beings on each other change. Through the movement of the moon around the sun, which has come into being, the human beings alternately come at one time more into the sphere of the sun's action; at another time they can turn away from it and are then more dependent on themselves. The movement is a consequence of the "falling away" of certain lunar beings described above and of the compensation for the struggle which has been caused by it. It is only the physical expression for the spiritual balance of forces created by their rebellion.
222
Then came the other essential event, of which we know that it took place during the Lemurian time, and by which the lunar substantiality with all lunar forces exited out of the earth itself. The exit of the moon outward from the earth took place. With it, however, enormous changes went on with the earth. Only now was the earth brought into a condition that man could prosper. Whereas the forces would have been too spiritual, so to speak, if the earth had remained united with the sun, they would have had to become too coarse if the earth had remained united with the moon. Thus, the moon departed, and the earth remained in a kind of equilibrium, which was caused by the fact that the solar and lunar beings worked from outside. And by this the earth prepared itself to become the bearer of human existence. All this happened during Lemurian time.
223
The Bible knows the idea that the Elohim are as it were previously members of a group and then arrange themselves to a unity, so that they cooperate before like the members of a group and are directed afterwards through a common organism. And this real unity of the Elohim, in which the individual Elohim work actively as members, as organs, the Bible calls Jahve-Elohim. There you have now in an even deeper way than it was possible before, the concept of Jahve, the Jehovah. Therefore, the Bible also speaks at first in its report only of the Elohim, and begins, where the Elohim themselves have advanced to a higher stage, to a unity, to speak of Jahve-Elohim. This is the deeper reason why at the end of the work of creation the name of Yahweh suddenly appears.
224
The body of man has changed greatly in the course of a long evolution. In Lemurian times, the body was a kind of fire mist, like a fiery cloud. There was also no solid earth at that time. The human body had the same substances in it as today's body, but it was gaseous. He quickly underwent various metamorphoses. His will determined the expression of his form. If he wanted something, he could not reach for it with his hand, because he had none. He first formed a hand in order to reach. Today this sounds fantastic.
The human being develops higher and higher and on the third stage of race formation he again separates matter, which he cannot make the carrier of a higher consciousness. He gives it away again as material for the animals, which look now approximately like amphibians, which have gigantic forms. They are described to us in the fables and myths of the peoples as flying dragons and so on. Even at this point no being that has evolved has sexual reproduction. Only in the middle of the third race, in the middle of the Lemurian time, the beginnings of it appear. The scene of these events was in Lemuria, in the region of primordial India in the Indian Ocean.
225
With the exception of a very small number, the human soul spirits took leave of the earthly conditions in this meantime and raised themselves up into higher regions. And depending on their stage of development, these human soul-spirits continued their further development on the planets which belong to our earth-solar system. Certain soul-spirits were predisposed to continue their development on Saturn, others on Mars, still others on Mercury and so on. Only a very small number of the strongest human soul-spirits remained in connection with the earth.
Little by little a re-descent, a re-streaming of the human soul-spirits that fled to the planetary neighbors of our earth takes place. This is something that continued long into the Atlantean time, that the souls of the neighboring planets always descended. And the development during the last Lemurian time and during the Atlantean time took place in such a way that what crystallized as man was gradually endowed with soul-spirits of different kinds, depending on whether these soul-spirits came down from Mars, from Mercury, from Jupiter and so on. Thus, a great variety had come into the earthly development of man. Those who have become acquainted with my last Christiania lectures know that in this division into Martian, Saturnian and so on there was something original, which later led to the racial differentiation of mankind. There we have to look for the difference within the human race, and one can still recognize today, if one has the view for it, at a human being whether his soul has come down from this or that planetary neighbor of our earth.
226
Everything that has come into the sun from the moon is now permeated with the powers of the "spirits of wisdom". Therefore, what becomes of the sun-moon formation within this time of development can be called "cosmos of wisdom". If then after a rest our earth system appears as a descendant of this "cosmos of wisdom", then all the beings newly reviving on earth, sprouting from their moon germs, manifest themselves in such a way that they are filled with wisdom. This is why man, looking at the things around him, can find wisdom in the nature of their being. One can admire the wisdom in every plant leaf, in every animal and human bone, in the miraculous structure of the brain and the heart. If man needs wisdom to understand things, that is, to get wisdom out of them, this shows that wisdom lies in things. For if man were to strive no matter how hard to understand things through wisdom-filled conceptions: he could not get wisdom out of them if it had not first been put into them. He who wants to grasp things through wisdom, of which he believes that they have not first received wisdom, must also believe that he can draw water from a glass into which it has not first been poured. The earth is, as will be shown later in this writing, the resurrected "old moon". And it appears as a wisdom-full structure, because in the described epoch it was penetrated by the "spirits of the wisdom" with their forces.
227
These group souls (see also Kome. No. 333) already existed in the Lemurian time. At that time the female sex had developed from the lion people and the male sex from the bull people. "At that time a very strange sight would have presented itself to the observer. One would have found a kind of race of which one could have said to oneself with prophetic gift: These are physical beings somewhat reminiscent of lions, reflecting the character of the lion, though they looked different from lions today. They were lion-minded people, aggressive human germs. Then again there was a group of bull-like people, all viewed on the physical plane. One can easily also describe the third and fourth races. The third race was already strongly visionary. While the first was martial, while the second was cultivating everything related to the physical plane, to the processing of the physical plane, you would have found a third class of people who were very visionary. As a rule, they had something that was malformed in relation to the other bodies. They would have reminded you of such people who have a great deal of psychic and believe in visions, but who, because they do not care much for the physical, have something withered, something stunted in relation to the power-drenched of the other two groups. They would have reminded you of the bird nature. "I want to hold back my spirit," that was the tendency of the eagle people. The others had something that was mixed from all parts, so to speak."
228
The power goes into the form, into stronger and stronger density, and therefore the life in the Lemurian race had to receive a new impulse, which was caused by a rotation of the globe. The earth's axis was gradually turned around. Earlier there was a tropical climate at the North Pole, later the tropical climate came to the center due to the rotation of the Earth's axis. This reversal proceeded with relative rapidity, lasted nevertheless perhaps four million years. The Lemurian time was twenty-two million years ago. It took the lunar pitris four million years to reverse the axis. The intelligence of the lunar pitris was then already much more developed than that of today's humans.
GA093a; 185
229
At the third level, substance no longer needs to relate directly to substance itself, but through the forces emanating from the substance, the substances attract each other, repel each other and so on. We are dealing with the astral realm.
230
See 134 - 140
231
With the departure of the moon a part of the human bodies changed into such with male character. Thus, it absorbed the fertilizing forces, which were previously contained, as it were, in the juice of the earth itself. The female nature of the human body underwent such a transformation that it could be fertilized by the resulting male. - All this happened by the fact that a kind of double-sex human body changed into a single-sex one. The former human body fertilized itself with absorbed substances. Now one form of the human body, the female one, received only the power to bring to maturity what has been fertilized. This happened in such a way that in it the male power lost the ability to prepare the fruit substance. This power remains only to the etheric or life body, which has to bring about the maturation. The male form of the human body lost the possibility to do something with the fruit substance in itself. The feminine remained limited to the etheric body. Thus, it happens that in the present human being the etheric body is female in the man, but male in the woman. - The acquisition of these abilities coincides with the formation of a solid skeleton.
232
It is easier to form an idea of this state of consciousness, because there is a certain similarity between this level of consciousness and sleep, which is permeated by dreams. However, it must be expressly said that here, too, we may only speak of a similarity, not of a sameness. For it is true that the moon consciousness proceeds in pictures, as they are presented by the dream; but these pictures correspond in a similar way to the things and processes in the surroundings of man as do the ideas of the present "bright day consciousness". Only everything in this correspondence is still dull, just pictorial. One can illustrate the matter in the following way. One assumes that a moon being comes near an object, let's say a salt. (Of course, at that time there was not yet "salt" in the today's form, but one must remain, in order to make oneself understandable, in the area of pictures and comparisons). This moon being - the predecessor of the present man - does not perceive a spatially extended object of certain coloring and form outside of himself, but the approach to this object causes that a certain picture - just similar to a dream picture - rises, so to speak, in the inside of the being. This image has a certain color tone, which depends on the nature of the object. If the object is sympathetic to the being, conducive to its life, then the color tone is light in yellow nuances, or even green; if it is an unsympathetic object or one that is harmful to the being, then a bloody-reddish color nuance appears. The clairvoyant also sees in such a way today, only he is fully conscious in this seeing, while the moon dweller just had only a dreamlike, dim consciousness. The images shining "in the inside" of these inhabitants had an exactly determined relation to the environment. There was nothing arbitrary in them. Therefore one could act according to them, one acted under the impressions of these pictures in such a way, as one acts today under the impressions of the sense perceptions.