Rudolph Steiner's Atlantis

[Sandra]

The air was much thicker even than in later Atlantean times, the water much thinner. And what forms the firm crust of our earth today was not yet as hard as it later became. The world of plants and animals had developed only as far as the amphibians, the birds, and the lower mammals, and as far as vegetable growths which resemble our palms and similar trees. However, all forms were different from what they are today. What now exists only all in forms was then developed to gigantic sizes. At that time our small ferns were trees and formed mighty forests. The modern higher mammals did not exist. On the other hand a great part of humanity was on such a low stage of development that one cannot but designate it as animal. What has been described here was true only of a small part of mankind, The rest lived their life in animalism. In their external appearance and in their way of life these animal men were quite different from the small group. They were not especially different from the lower mammals, which resembled them in form in certain respects.

A few more words must be said about the significance of the above-mentioned temple localities. What was cultivated there was not really religion. It was “divine wisdom and art.” Man felt that what was given to him there was a direct gift from the spiritual universal forces. When he received this gift he considered himself a “servant” of these universal forces. He felt himself “sanctified” from everything unspiritual. If one wishes to speak of religion at this stage of the development of mankind, one could call it “religion of the will.” The religious temper and dedication lay in the fact that man guarded the powers granted to him as a strict, divine “secret,” and that he led a life through which he sanctified his power. Persons who had such powers were regarded by others with great awe and veneration. And this awe and veneration were not called forth by laws or something similar, but by the immediate power which these persons exercised. The uninitiated of course stood under the magical influence of the initiated. It was also natural that the latter considered themselves to be sanctified personages. For in their temples they participated in direct contemplation of the active forces of nature. They looked into the creative workshop of nature. They experienced a communion with the beings which build the world itself. One can call this communication an association with the gods. What later developed as “initiation,” as “mystery,” emerged from this original manner of communication of men with the gods. In subsequent times this communication had to become different, since the human imagination, the human spirit, took other forms.

Of special importance is something which occurred in the course of Lemurian development by virtue of the fact that the women lived in the manner described above. They thereby developed special human powers. Their faculty of imagination which was in alliance with nature, became the basis for a higher development of the life of ideas. They took the forces of nature into themselves, where they had an after-effect in the soul. Thus the germs of memory were formed. With memory was also born the capacity to form the first and simplest moral concepts.

The development of the will among the male element at first knew nothing of this. The man followed instinctively either the impulses of nature or the influences emanating from the initiated.

It was from the manner of life of the women that the first ideas of “good and evil” arose. There one began to love some of the things which had made a special impression on the imagination, and to abhor others. While the control which the male element exercised was directed more toward the external action of the powers of the will, toward the manipulation of the forces of nature, beside it in the female element there developed an action through the soul, through the inner, personal forces of man. The development of mankind can only be correctly understood by the one who takes into consideration that the first progress in the life of the imagination was made by women. The development connected with the life of the imagination, with the formation of memory, of customs which formed the seeds for a life of law, for a kind of morals, came from this side. If man had seen and exercised the forces of nature, woman became the first interpreter of them. It was a special new manner of living through reflection which developed here. This manner had something much more personal than that of the men. One must imagine this manner of the women to have been also a kind of clairvoyance, although it differed from the magic of the will of the men. In her soul woman was accessible to another kind of spiritual powers. The latter spoke more to the feeling element of the soul, less to the spiritual, to which man was subject. Thus there emanated from men an effect which was more natural-divine, from women one which was more soul-divine.

[Sandra]

The development which woman went through during the Lemurian period had the result that at the appearance of the next — the Atlantean — root race on earth, an important role devolved upon her. This appearance took place under the influence of highly developed entities, who were familiar with the laws of the formation of races and capable of guiding the existing forces of human nature into such paths that a new race could come into being. These beings will be specially mentioned further on. May it suffice for the moment to say that they possessed superhuman wisdom and power. They now isolated a small group out of Lemurian mankind and designated these to be the ancestors of the coming Atlantean race. The place where they did this was situated in the tropical zone. Under their direction the men of this group had been trained in the control of the natural forces. They were very strong, and knew how to win the most diverse treasures from the earth. They could cultivate the fields and use their fruits for their subsistence. They had become characters of strong will through the discipline to which they had been subjected. Their souls and hearts were developed only in small measure. On the other hand these had been developed among the women. Memory and fantasy and everything connected with them were to be found among the latter.

The above-mentioned leaders caused the group to divide itself into smaller groups. They put the women in charge of ordering and establishing these groups. Through her memory, woman had acquired the capacity to make the experiences and adventures of the past useful for the future. What had proved helpful yesterday she used today and realized that it would also be useful tomorrow. The institutions for communal life therefore emanated from her. Under her influence the concepts of “good and evil” developed. Through her thoughtful life she had acquired an understanding for nature. Out of the observation of nature, those ideas developed in her according to which she directed the actions of men. The leaders had arranged things in such a way that through the soul of woman, the willful nature, the vigorous strength of man were ennobled and refined. Of course one must represent all this to oneself as childish beginnings. The words of our language all too easily call up ideas which are taken from the life of the present.

By way of the awakened soul life of the women the leaders first developed the soul life of the men. In the colony we have described, the influence of the women was therefore very great. One had to go to them for advice when one wanted to interpret the signs of nature. The whole manner of their soul life however was still dominated by the “hidden” human soul forces. One does not describe the matter quite exactly, but fairly closely, if one speaks of a somnambulistic contemplating among these women. In certain higher dreams the secrets of nature were divulged to them and they received the impulses for their actions. Everything was animated for them and showed itself to them in soul powers and apparitions. They abandoned themselves to the mysterious weaving of their soul forces. That which impelled them to their actions were “inner voices,” or what plants, animals, stones, wind and clouds, the whispering of the trees, and so on, told them.

From this state of soul originated that which one can call human religion. The spiritual in nature and in human life gradually came to be venerated and worshiped. Some women attained a special preeminence because out of special mysterious depths they could interpret what the world contained.

Thus it could come to pass among such women that that which lived within them could transpose itself into a kind of natural language. For the beginning of language lies in something which is similar to song. The energy of thought was transformed into audible sound. The inner rhythm of nature sounded from the lips of “wise” women. One gathered around such women and in their songlike sentences felt the utterances of higher powers. Human worship of the gods began with such things.

For that period there can be no question of “sense” in that which was spoken. Sound, tone, and rhythm were perceived. One did not imagine anything along with these, but absorbed in the soul the power of what was heard. The whole process was under the direction of the higher leaders. They had inspired the “wise” priestesses with tones and rhythms in a manner which cannot now be further discussed. Thus they could have an ennobling effect on the souls of men. One can say that in this way the true life of the soul first awakened.

[Sandra]

In this realm, beautiful scenes are shown by the Akasha Chronicle. One of these will be described. We are in a forest, near a mighty tree. The sun has just risen in the east. The palmlike tree, from around which the other trees have been removed, casts mighty shadows. The priestess, her face turned to the east, ecstatic, sits on a seat made of rare natural objects and plants. Slowly in rhythmical sequence, a few strange, constantly repeated sounds stream from her lips. A number of men and women are sitting in circles around her, their faces lost in dreams, absorbing inner life from what they hear.

Other scenes too can be seen. At a similarly arranged place a priestess “sings” in a similar manner, but her tones have in them something mightier, more powerful. Those around her move in rhythmic dances. For this was the other way in which “soul” entered into mankind. The mysterious rhythms which one had heard from Nature were imitated by the movements of the limbs. One thereby felt at one with nature and with the powers acting in her.

The place on earth in which this stock of a coming race of men was developed was especially suited for this purpose. It was one where the then still turbulent earth had become fairly calm. For Lemuria was turbulent. After all, the earth at that time did not yet have its later density. The thin ground was everywhere undermined by volcanic forces which broke forth in smaller or larger streams. Mighty volcanos existed almost everywhere and developed a continuous destructive activity. Men were accustomed to reckoning with this fiery activity in everything they did. They also used this fire in their labors and contrivances. Their occupations were often such that the fire of nature served as a basis for them in the same way as artificial fire does in human labor today.

It was through the activity of this volcanic fire that the destruction of the Lemurian land came about. While the part of Lemuria from which the parent race of the Atlanteans was to develop had a hot climate, it was by and large free of volcanic activity.

Human nature could unfold more calmly and peacefully here than in the other regions of the earth. The more nomadic life of former times was abandoned, and fixed settlements became more and more numerous.

One must represent to oneself that at that time the human body still had very malleable and pliant qualities. This body still changed form whenever the inner life changed. Not long before, men had still been quite diverse as regards their external form. At that time the external influence of region and climate were still decisive in respect to their form. Only in the colony described did the body of man Increasingly become an expression of his inner soul life. Moreover, this colony had an advanced externally more nobly formed race of men. One must say that through the things which they had done, the leaders had really first created what is the true human form. This occurred quite slowly and gradually. It happened in such a way that the soul life of man was first developed and that the still soft and malleable body adapted itself to this. It is a law in the development of mankind that, as progress continues, man has less and less of a molding influence on his physical body. This physical human body in fact received a fairly unchanging form only with the development of the faculty of reason and with the hardening of the rock, mineral, and metal formations of earth connected with this development. For in the Lemurian and even in the Atlantean period, stones and metals were much softer than later.

This is not contradicted by the fact that there exist descendants of the last Lemurians and Atlanteans who today exhibit forms as fixed as the human races which were formed later. These remnants had to adapt themselves to the changed environmental conditions of earth and thus became more rigid. Just this is the reason for their decline. They did not transform themselves from within; instead, their less developed interior was forced into rigidity from the outside and thus compelled to stagnation. This stagnation is really a regression, for the inner life, too, has degenerated because it could not fulfill itself within the rigid external bodily structure.

Animal life was subject to even greater changeability. We shall speak further about the animal species existing at the time of the development of man and about their origin, as well as about the development of new animal forms after man already existed. Here we shall say only that the existing animal species continually transformed themselves and that new ones were developing. This transformation was of course a gradual one. The reasons for the transformation lay in part in a change of habitat and of the manner of life. The animals had a capacity of extraordinarily rapid adaptation to new conditions. The malleable body changed its organs comparatively rapidly, so that after a more or less brief period the descendants of a particular animal species resembled their ancestors only slightly. The same was the case in even greater measure for the plants. The greatest influence on the transformation of men and animals was exercised by man himself. This was true whether he instinctively brought organisms into such an environment that they assumed certain forms, or whether he achieved this by experiments in breeding. The transforming influence of man on nature was immeasurably great at that time, compared with the conditions of today. This was especially the case in the colony we have described. For there the leaders directed this transformation in a way of which men were not conscious. This was the case to such a degree that when men left the colony in order to found the different Atlantean races, they could take with them a highly developed knowledge of the breeding of animals and plants. The labor of cultivation in Atlantis was then essentially a consequence of the knowledge thus brought along. But here again it must be emphasized that this knowledge had an instinctive character. In this state essentially it remained among the first Atlantean races.

[Sandra]

The preeminence of the feminine soul, which has been described, was especially strong in the last Lemurian period and continued into the Atlantean times, during which the fourth subrace was preparing itself. But one must not imagine that this was the case among all of mankind. It was true, however, for that part of the population of earth from which the truly advanced races later emerged. This influence exercised the strongest effect upon all that which in man is “unconscious.” The development of certain constant gestures, the refinements of sensory perception, the feeling for beauty, a good part of the general life of sensations and feelings which is common to all men — all this originally emanated from the spiritual influence of woman. It is not an over-statement if one interprets the reports in such a way as to affirm, “The civilized nations have a bodily form and expression, as well as certain bases of physical-soul life, which were imprinted upon them by woman.”

In the next chapter we shall go back to earlier periods of the development of mankind, during which the population of earth still belonged to only one sex. The development of the two sexes will then be described.

[Sandra]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA011/CM/GA011_c05.html

Cosmic Memory
The Division into Sexes

MUCH AS THE HUMAN FORM in those ancient times described in the preceding chapters differed from the form of present-day man, one comes to conditions still more dissimilar if one goes even further back in the history of mankind. For only in the course of time did the forms of man and woman develop from an older, basic form in which human beings were neither the one nor the other, but rather were both at once. He who wants to form an idea of these enormously distant periods of the past must however liberate himself completely from the habitual conceptions taken from what man sees around him.

The times into which we now look back lie somewhat before the middle of the epoch which in the preceding passages was designated as the Lemurian. At that time the human body still consisted of soft and malleable materials. The other forms of earth also were still soft and malleable. As opposed to its later hardened condition, earth was still in a welling, more fluid one. As the human soul at that time embodied itself in matter, it could adapt this matter to itself in a much greater degree than later. That the soul takes on a male or a female body is due to the fact that the development of external terrestrial nature forces the one or the other upon it. While the material substances had not yet become rigid, the soul could force these substances to obey its own laws. It made of the body an impression of its own nature. But when became denser the soul had to submit to the laws impressed upon this matter by external terrestrial nature. As long as the soul could still control matter, it formed its body as neither male nor female, but, instead gave it qualities which embraced both at the same time. For the soul is simultaneously male and female. It carries these two natures in itself its male element — is related to what is called will, its female element to what is called imagination.

The external formation of earth resulted in that the body assumed a one-sided form. The male body has taken a form which is conditioned by the element of will; the female body on the other hand, bears the stamp of imagination. Thus it comes about that the two-sexed, male-female soul inhabits a single-sexed, male or female body. In the course of development the body had taken a form determined by the external terrestrial forces, so that it was no longer possible for the soul to pour its whole inner energy into this body. The soul had to retain something of this energy within itself and could let only a part of it flow into the body.

If one continues with the Akasha Chronicle, the following becomes apparent. In an ancient period, human forms appear before us which are soft, malleable and quite different from later ones. They Still carry the nature of man and woman within themselves to an equal degree. In the course of time, the material substances become denser; the human body appears in two forms, one of which begins to resemble the subsequent shape of man, the other that of woman. When this difference had not yet appeared, every human being could produce another human being out of himself. Impregnation was not an external process, but was something which took, place inside the human body itself. By becoming male or female, the body lost this possibility of self-impregnation. It had to act together with another body in order to produce a new human being.

[Sandra]

The division into sexes takes place when the earth enters a certain stage of its densification. The density of matter inhibits a portion of the force of reproduction. That portion of this force which is still active needs an external complementation through the opposite force of another human being. The soul however must retain a portion of its earlier energy within itself, in man as well as in woman. It cannot use this portion in the physical external world.

This portion of energy is now directed toward the interior of man. It cannot emerge toward the exterior; therefore it is freed for inner organs.

Here an important point in the development of mankind appears. Previously that which is called spirit, the faculty of thought, could not find a place in man. For this faculty would have found no organs for exercising its functions. The soul had employed all its energy toward the exterior, in order to build up the body. But now the energy of the soul, which finds no external employment, can become associated with the spiritual energy, and through this association those organs are developed in the body which later make of man a thinking being. Thus man could use a portion of the energy which previously he employed for the production of beings like himself, in order to perfect his own nature. The force by which mankind forms a thinking brain for itself is the same by which man impregnated himself in ancient times. The price of thought is single-sexedness. By no longer impregnating themselves, but rather by impregnating each other, human beings can turn a part of their productive energy within, and so become thinking creatures. Thus the male and the female body each represent an imperfect external embodiment of the soul, but thereby they become more perfect inwardly.

This transformation of man takes place very slowly and gradually. Little by little, the younger, single-sexed male or female forms appear beside the old double-sexed ones.

It is again a kind of fertilization which takes place in man when he becomes a creature endowed with spirit. The inner organs which can be built up by the surplus soul energy are fructified by the spirit. In itself the soul is two-sided: male-female. In ancient times it also formed its body on this basis. Later it can form its body only in such a way that for the external it acts together with another body; thereby the soul itself receives the capacity to act together with the spirit. For the external, man is henceforward fertilized from the outside, for the internal, from the inside, through the spirit. One can say that the male body now has a female soul, the female body a male soul. This inner one-sidedness of man is compensated by fertilization through the spirit. The one-sidedness is abolished. Both the male soul in the female body and the female soul in the male body again become double-sexed through fructification by the spirit. Thus man and woman are different in their external form; internally their spiritual one-sidedness is rounded out to a harmonious whole. Internally, spirit and soul are fused into one unit. Upon the male soul in woman the action of the spirit is female, and thus renders it male-female; upon the female soul in man the action of the spirit is male, and thus renders it male-female also. The double-sexedness of man has retired from the external world where it existed in the pre-Lemurian period, into his interior.

One can see that the higher inner essence of a human being has nothing to do with man or woman. The inner equality, however, does result from a male soul in woman, and correspondingly from a female soul in man. The union with the spirit finally brings about the equality; but the fact that before the establishment of this equality there exists a difference involves a secret of human nature. The understanding of this secret is of great significance for all mystery science. It is the key to important enigmas of life. For the present we are not permitted to lift the veil which is spread over this secret . . .

[Sandra]

Thus physical man has developed from double-sexedness to single-sexedness, to the separation into male and female. In this way man has become a spiritual being of the kind which he is now. But one must not suppose that no beings which possessed cognition had been in contact with the earth before then. When one follows the Akasha Chronicle it does indeed appear that in the first Lemurian period, later physical man, because of his double sex, was a totally different being from that which one today designates as man. He could not connect any sensory perceptions with thoughts; he did not think. His life was one of impulses. His soul expressed itself only in instincts, in appetites, in animal desires and so on. His consciousness was dreamlike; he lived in dullness.

But there were other beings among these men. These of course were also double-sexed. For at the stage of terrestrial development of that time no male or female human body could be produced. The external conditions did not yet exist for this. But there were other beings which could acquire knowledge and wisdom in spite of their double-sexedness. This was possible because they had gone through a quite different development in a still more remote past. It was possible for their soul to be fructified by the spirit without first awaiting the development of the inner organs of the physical body of man. By means of the physical brain, the soul of contemporary man can think only that which it receives from the outside through the physical senses. This is the condition to which the development of man's soul has led. The human soul had to wait until a brain existed which became the mediator with the spirit. Without this detour, this soul would have remained spiritless. It would have remained arrested at the stage of dreamlike consciousness. This was different among the superhuman beings mentioned above. In previous stages their soul had developed organs which needed nothing physical in order to enter into contact with the spirit. Their knowledge and wisdom were supersensibly acquired. Such knowledge is called intuitive. Contemporary man attains such intuition only at a later stage of his development; this intuition makes it possible for him to enter into contact with the spirit without sensory mediation. He must make a detour through the world of sensory substance. This detour is called the descent of the human soul into matter, or popularly, “the fall of man.”

Because of a different earlier development, the superhuman beings did not have to take part in this descent. Since their soul had already attained a higher stage, their consciousness was not dreamlike, but inwardly clear. Their acquisition of knowledge and wisdom was a clairvoyance which had no need of senses or of an organ of thought. The wisdom according to which the world is built shone into their soul directly. Therefore they could become the leaders of youthful humanity which was still sunk in dullness. They were the bearers of a “primeval wisdom,” toward the understanding of which mankind is only now struggling along the detour mentioned above. They differed from what one calls “man” through the fact that wisdom shone upon them as the sunlight does upon us, as a free gift “from above.” “Man” was in a different position. He had to acquire wisdom by the work of the senses and of the organ of thought. Originally it did not come to him as a free gift. He had to desire it. Only when the desire for wisdom lived in man, did he acquire it through his senses and his organ of thought. Thus a new impulse had to awaken in the soul: the desire, the longing for knowledge. In its earlier stages the human soul could not have had this longing. The impulses of the soul were directed only toward materialization in that which assumed form externally — in what took place in it as a dreamlike life — but not toward cognition of the external world, nor toward knowledge. It is with the division into sexes that the impulse toward knowledge first appears.

[Sandra]

The superhuman beings received wisdom by way of clairvoyance just because they did not have this desire for it. They waited until wisdom shone into them, as we wait for the sunlight, which we cannot produce at night, but which must come to us by itself in the morning.

The longing for knowledge is produced by the fact that the soul develops inner organs, the brain and so forth, by means of which it gains possession of knowledge. This is a consequence of the circumstance that a part of the energy of the soul is no longer directed toward the outside, but toward the inside. The superhuman beings however, which have not carried out this separation of their spiritual forces, direct all the energy of their soul toward the outside. Therefore that force is also available to them externally for fructification by the spirit, which “man” turns inward for the development of the organs of cognition.

Now that force by means of which one human being turns toward the outside in order to act together with another is love. The superhuman beings directed all their love outward in order to let universal wisdom flow into their soul. “Man” however can only direct a part of it outward. “Man” became sensual, and thereby his love became sensual. He draws away from the outside world that part of his nature which he directs toward his inner development. And thus that arises which one calls selfishness. When he became man or woman in the physical body, “man” could surrender himself with only a part of his being; with the other part he separated himself from the world around him. He became selfish. And his action toward the outside became selfish; his striving after inner development also became selfish. He loved because he desired, and likewise he thought because he desired wisdom.

The selfless, all-loving natures, the leaders, the superhuman beings, confronted man, who was still childishly selfish.

The soul, which among these beings does not reside in a male or female body, is itself male-female. It loves without desire. Thus the innocent soul of man loved before the division into sexes, but at that time it could not understand, because it was still at an inferior stage, that of dream consciousness. The soul of the superhuman beings also loves in this manner, however, with understanding because of its advanced development. “Man” must pass through selfishness in order to attain selflessness again at a higher stage, where, however, it will be combined with completely clear consciousness.

The task of the superhuman natures, of the great leaders, was that they impressed upon youthful man their own character, that of love. They could do this only for that part of the spiritual energy which was directed outward. Thus sensual love was produced. It is therefore a consequence of the activity of the soul in a male or female body. Sensual love became the force of physical human development. This love brings man and woman together insofar as they are physical beings. Upon this love rests the progress of physical humanity.

It was only over this love that the superhuman natures had power. That part of human soul energy which is directed inward and is to bring about cognition by the detour through the senses — that part is withdrawn from the power of those superhuman beings. However, they themselves had never descended to the development of corresponding inner organs. They could clothe the impulse toward the external in love, because love acting toward the external was part of their own nature. Because of this, a gulf opened between them and youthful mankind. Love, at first in sensual form, they could plant in man; knowledge they could not give, for their own knowledge had never made the detour through the inner organs which man was now developing. They could speak no language which a creature with a brain could have understood.

[Sandra]

The inner organs of man mentioned above first became ripe for a contact with the spirit only at that stage of terrestrial existence which lies in the middle of the Lemurian period; but they had already been formed incompletely, at a much earlier stage of development. For the soul had already gone through physical embodiments in preceding times. It had lived in dense substance, not on earth but on other celestial bodies. Details about this must be given later. At present we shall say only that the terrestrial beings previously lived on another planet, where, in accordance with the prevailing conditions, they developed up to the point at which they were when they arrived on earth. They put off the substances of this preceding planet like clothing and, at the level of development which they thus attained, became pure soul germs with the capacity to perceive, to feel and so forth — in short, to lead that dreamlike life which remained peculiar to them in the first stages of their terrestrial existence.

The superhuman entities previously mentioned, the leaders in the field of love, had already been so perfect on the preceding planet that they did not have to descend to develop the rudiments of those inner organs.

But there were other beings, not as far advanced as these leaders of love, who on the preceding planet were still numbered among “men,” but at that period were hurrying ahead of men. Thus, at the beginning of the formation of the earth, they were further advanced than men, but still were at the stage where knowledge must be acquired through inner organs. These beings were in a special position. They were too far advanced to pass through the physical human body, male or female, but on the other hand, were not so far advanced that they could act through full clairvoyance like the leaders of love. They could not yet be beings of love; they could no longer be “men.” Thus they could only continue their own development as half superhuman beings, in which they were aided by men. They could speak to creatures with a brain in a language which the latter could understand. Thereby the human soul energy which was turned inward was stimulated, and could connect itself with knowledge and wisdom. It was thus that wisdom of a human kind first appeared on earth. The “half superhuman beings” mentioned above could use this human wisdom in order to achieve for themselves that of perfection which they still lacked. In this manner they became the stimulators of human wisdom. One therefore calls them bringers of light (Lucifer). Youthful mankind thus had two kinds of leaders: beings of love and beings of wisdom. Human nature was balanced between love and wisdom when it assumed its present form on this earth. By the beings of love it was stimulated to physical development, by the beings of wisdom to the perfection of the inner nature. As a consequence of physical development, humanity advances from generation to generation, forms new tribes and races; through inner development individuals grow toward inner perfection, become knowing and wise men, artists, technicians etc. Physical mankind strides from race to race; each race hands down its sensorily perceptible qualities to the following one through physical development. Here the law of heredity holds sway. The children carry within themselves the physical characteristics of the fathers. Beyond this lies a process of spiritual-soul perfection which can only take place through the development of the soul itself.

With this we stand before the law of the development of the soul within terrestrial existence. This development is connected with the law and mystery of birth and death.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Sandra]

Cosmic Memory

The Last Periods before the Division into Sexes
WE SHALL NOW DESCRIBE the state of man before his division into male and female. At that time the body consisted of a soft malleable mass. The will had a much greater power over this mass than later. When man separated from his parent entity he appeared as a truly articulated organism, but as an incomplete one. The further development of the organs took place outside the parent entity. Much of what later matured inside the mother organism was at that time brought to completion outside of it by a force which was akin to our will power. In order to bring about such an external maturation the care of the parent being was necessary. Man brought certain organs into the world which he later cast off. Others, which were quite incomplete at his first appearance, developed more fully. The whole process had something which can be compared with the emergence from an egg-form and the casting off of an eggshell, but here one must not think of a firm eggshell.

The body of man was warm-blooded. This must be stated explicitly, for in even earlier times it was different, as will be shown later. The maturation which took place outside the mother organism occurred under the influence of an increased warmth which also was supplied from the outside. But one must by no means think that the egg-man — as he will be called for the sake of brevity — was brooded. The conditions of heat and fire on the earth of that time were different from those of later times. By means of his powers man could confine fire, or respectively, heat, to a certain space. He could, so to speak, contract, (concentrate) heat. He was thus in a position to supply the young organism with the warmth which it needed for its maturation.

The most highly developed organs of man at that time were the organs of motion. The sense organs of today were as yet quite undeveloped. The most advanced among them were the organs of hearing and of perception of cold and hot, the sense of touch; the perception of light lagged far behind. Man came into the world with the senses of hearing and touch; the perception of light developed somewhat later.

Everything which is said here applies to the last periods before the division into sexes. This division took place slowly and gradually. Long before its actual occurrence, human beings were already developing in such a way that one individual would be born with more male, another with more female characteristics. Each human being however also possessed the opposite sexual characteristics, so that self-impregnation was possible. But the latter could not always take place, because it depended on the influences of external conditions in certain seasons. With respect to many things and to a great extent, man was generally dependent on such outer conditions. Therefore he had to regulate all his institutions in accordance with such external conditions, for example, in accordance with the course of the sun and the moon. But his regulation did not take place consciously in the modern sense, but was accomplished in a manner which one must call instinctive. With this we already indicate the soul life of man of that time.

This soul life cannot be described as a true inner life. Physical and soul activities and qualities were not yet strictly separated. The outer life of nature was still experienced by the soul. Each single disturbance in the environment acted powerfully on the sense of hearing especially Every disturbance of the air, every movement was “heard.” In their movements wind and water spoke an “eloquent language” to man. In this manner a perception of the mysterious activity of nature penetrated into him. This activity reverberated in his soul. His own activity was an echo of these impressions. He transformed the perceptions of sound into his own activity. He lived among such tonal movements and expressed them by his will. In this way he was impelled to all his daily labors.

He was influenced in a somewhat lesser degree by the influences which act upon the touch. But they also played an important role. He “felt” the environment in his body and acted accordingly. From such influences upon the touch he could tell when and how he had to work. He knew from them where he should rest. In them he recognized and avoided dangers which threatened his life. In accordance with these influences he regulated his food intake.

[Sandra]

The remainder of the soul life took its course in a manner quite different from that of later periods. In the soul lived images of external objects, not conceptions of them. For instance, when man entered a warmer space from a colder one, a certain colored image arose in his soul. But this colored image had nothing to do with any external object. It originated in an inner force which was akin to the will. Such images continuously filled the soul. One can compare this only with the flowing dream impressions of man. At that time the images were not completely irregular, but proceeded according to law. Therefore, in relation to this stage of mankind, one should speak of an image consciousness rather than of a dream consciousness. For the most part, colored images filled this consciousness. But these were not the only kind. Thus man wandered through the world, and through his hearing and touch participated in the events of this world: but in his soul life this world was mirrored in images which were very unlike what existed in the external world. Joy and sorrow were associated with the images of the soul to a much lesser degree than is the case today with the ideas of men which reflect their perceptions of the external world. It is true that one image awakened happiness, another displeasure, one hate, another love; but these feelings had a much paler character.

On the other hand, strong feelings were aroused by something else. At that time man was much more active than later. Everything in his environment as well as the images in his soul, stimulated him to activity, to movement. When his activity could proceed without hindrance, he experienced pleasure, but when this activity was hindered in any way, he felt displeasure and discomfort. It was the absence or presence of hindrances to his will which determined the content of his sensations, his joy and his pain. This joy, or this pain were again released in his soul in a world of living images. Light, clear, beautiful images lived in him when he could be completely free in his actions; dark, misshapen images arose in his soul when his movements were hindered.

Until now the average man has been described. Among those who had developed into a kind of superhuman beings, (cf. page 96) soul life was different. Their soul life did not have this instinctive character. Through their senses of hearing and touch they perceived deeper mysteries of nature, which they could interpret consciously. In the rushing of the wind, in the rustling of the trees, the laws, the wisdom of nature were unveiled to them. The images in their souls did not merely represent reflections of the external world, but were likenesses of the spiritual powers of the world. They did not perceive sensory objects, but spiritual entities. For example, the average man experienced fear, and an ugly, dark image arose in his soul. By means of such images the superhuman being received information and revelation about the spiritual entities of the world. The processes of nature did not appear to him as dependent on lifeless natural laws, as they do to the scientist of today, but rather as the actions of spiritual beings. External reality did not yet exist, for there were no external senses. But spiritual reality was accessible to the higher beings. The spirit shone into them as the sun shines into the physical eye of man today. In these beings, cognition was what one may call intuitive knowledge in the fullest sense of the word. For them there was no combining and speculating, but an immediate perception of the activity of spiritual beings. Therefore, these superhuman individuals could receive communications from the spiritual world directly into their will. They consciously directed the other men. They received their mission from the world of spirits and acted accordingly.

When the time came in which the sexes separated, these beings considered it their task to act upon the new life in accordance with their mission. The regulation of sexual life emanated from them. Everything which relates to the reproduction of mankind originated with them. In this they acted quite consciously, but the other men could only feel this influence as an instinct implanted in them. Sexual love was implanted in man by immediate transference of thought. At first all its manifestations were of the noblest character. Everything in this area which has taken on an ugly character comes from later times, when men became more independent and when they corrupted an originally pure impulse. In these older times there was no satisfaction of the sexual impulse for its own sake. Then, everything was a sacrificial service for the continuation of human existence. Reproduction was regarded as a sacred matter, as a service which man owes to the world. Sacrificial priests were the directors and regulators in this field.

Of a different kind were the influences of the half superhuman beings (cf. page 96/97). The latter were not developed to the point of being able to receive the revelations of the spiritual world in an entirely pure form. Along with these impressions of the spiritual world, the effects of the sensible earth also arose among the images of their souls. The truly superhuman beings received no impressions of joy and pain through the external world. They were wholly given over to the revelations of the spiritual powers. Wisdom flowed to them as light does to sensory beings; their will was directed toward nothing but acting in accordance with this wisdom. In this acting lay their highest joy. Wisdom, will, and activity constituted their nature. This was different among the half superhuman entities. They felt the impulse to receive impressions from the outside, and with the satisfaction of this impulse they connected joy, with its frustration, displeasure. Through this they differed from the superhuman entities. To these entities, external impressions were nothing but confirmations of spiritual revelations They could look out into the world without receiving anything more than a reflection of what they had already received from the spirit. The half-superhuman beings learned something new, and therefore they could become leaders of men when in human souls mere images changed into likenesses and conceptions of external objects. This happened when a portion of the previous reproductive energy of man turned inward, at the time when entities with brains were developed. With the brain man also received the capacity to transform external sensory impressions into conceptions.

It must therefore be said that by half-superhuman beings man was brought to the point of directing his inner nature toward the sensuous external world. He was not permitted to open the images of his soul directly to pure spiritual influences. The capacity of perpetuating the existence of his kind was implanted in him as an instinctive impulse by superhuman beings. Spiritually, he would at first have had to continue a sort of dream existence if the half-superhuman beings had not intervened. Through their influence the images of his soul were directed toward the sensuous, external world. He became a being which was conscious of itself in the world of the senses. Thereby it came about that man could consciously direct his actions in accordance with his perceptions of the world of the senses. Before this he had acted from a kind of instinct. He had been under the spell of his external environment and of the powers of higher individualities, which acted on him. Now he began to follow the impulses and enticements of his conceptions. Therewith free choice became possible for man. This was the beginning of “good and evil.”

Before we continue in this direction, something will be said concerning the environment of man on earth. In addition to man there existed animals, which, for their kind, were at the same stage of development as he. According to current ideas one would include them among the reptiles. Apart from them, lower forms of animal life existed. Between man and the animals there was an essential difference. Because of his still malleable body, man could live only in those regions of the earth which had not yet passed over into the most solid material form. And in these regions animal organisms which had a similarly plastic body lived with him. But in other regions lived animals which already had dense bodies and also had developed separate sexedness and the senses. Where they had come from, will be explained later. These animals could not develop further because their bodies had taken on this denser materiality too soon. Some species of these became extinct, others have perpetuated their kind to the point of contemporary forms. Man could attain higher forms because he remained in the regions which corresponded to his state at that time. Thereby his body remained so pliant and soft that he could develop the organs which were to be fructified by the spirit. With this development his external body had reached the point where it could pass over into denser materiality and become a protective envelope for the more delicate spiritual organs.

Not all human bodies, however, had reached this point. There were few advanced ones. These were first animated by spirit. Others were not animated. If the spirit had penetrated into them it could have developed only in a defective manner because of the as yet incomplete inner organs. Therefore, at first these human beings were compelled to develop further without spirit. A third kind had reached the point where weak spiritual impulses could act in them. They stood between the two other kinds. Their mental activity remained dull. They had to be led by higher spiritual powers. All possible transitions existed between these three kinds. Further development was now possible only in that a portion of the human beings attained higher forms at the expense of the others. First, the completely mindless ones had to be abandoned. A mingling with them for the purpose of reproduction would have pulled the more highly developed down to their level. Everything which had been given a mind was therefore separated from them. Thereby the latter descended more and more to the level of animalism. Thus, alongside man there developed manlike animals. Man left a portion of his brothers behind on his road in order that he himself might ascend higher. This process had by no means come to an end. Among the men with a dull mental life those who stood somewhat higher could advance only if they were raised to an association with higher ones, and separated themselves from those less endowed with spirit. Only thus could they develop bodies which would be fit to receive the full human spirit. After a certain time the physical development had come to a kind of stopping-point, in that everything which lay above a certain boundary remained human. Meanwhile, the conditions of life on earth had changed in such a way that a further thrusting down would no longer produce animal-like creatures, but such as were no longer capable of living. That which had been thrust down into the animal world has either become extinct or survives in the different higher animals. Therefore, one must consider these animals as beings which had to stop at an earlier stage of human development. They have not retained the form which they had at the time of their separation, however, but have gone from a higher to a lower level. Thus the apes are men of a past epoch who have regressed. As man was once less perfect than he is at present, they were once more perfect than they are now.

That which has remained in the field of the human, has gone through a similar process, but within these human limits. Many savage tribes must be considered to be the degenerated descendants of human forms which were once more highly developed. They did not sink to the level of animalism, but only to that of savagery.

The immortal part of man is the spirit. It has been shown when the spirit entered the body. Before this, the spirit belonged to other regions. It could only associate itself with the body when the latter had attained a certain level of development. Only when one understands completely how this association came about, can one recognize the significance of birth and death, and can understand the nature of the eternal spirit.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Sandra]

Cosmic Memory
The Hyperborean and the Polarean Epoch

THE FOLLOWING passages from the Akasha Chronicle go back to the periods which precede what was described in the last chapters. In view of the materialistic ideas of our time, the risk we undertake with these communications is perhaps even greater than that connected with what has been described in the preceding passages. Today such things are readily met with the accusation of fantasy and baseless speculation. When one knows how far from even taking these things seriously someone can be who has been trained scientifically in the contemporary sense, then only the consciousness that one is reporting faithfully in accordance with spiritual experience can lead one to write about them. Nothing is said here which has not been carefully examined with the means provided by the science of the spirit. The scientist need only be as tolerant toward the science of the spirit as the latter is toward the scientific way of thinking. [Compare my Welt-und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Conception's of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century), where I think I have shown that I am able to appreciate the materialistic-scientific view.*] For those however who incline toward these matters of the science of the spirit, I would like to make a special remark concerning the passages reproduced here. Especially important matters will be discussed in what follows. And all this belongs to periods which are long past. The deciphering of the Akasha Chronicle is not exactly easy in this area. The author of this present book in no way claims that he should be believed blindly. He merely wishes to report what his best efforts have enabled him to discover. He will welcome any correction based on competent knowledge. He feels obliged to communicate these events concerning the development of mankind because the signs of the times urge it. Moreover, a long period of time had to be described in outline here in order to afford a general view. Further details on much that is only indicated now will follow later.

Only with difficulty can the writings in the Akasha Chronicle be translated into our colloquial language. They are more easily communicated in the symbolical sign language used in mystery schools, but as yet the communication of this language is not permitted. Therefore the reader is requested to bear with much that is dark and difficult to comprehend, and to struggle toward an understanding, just as the writer has struggled toward a generally understandable manner of presentation. Many a difficulty in reading will be rewarded when one looks upon the deep mysteries, the important human enigmas which are indicated. A true self-knowledge of man is, after all, the result of these “Akasha Records,” which for the scientist of the spirit are realities as certain as are mountain ranges and rivers for the eye of sense. An error of perception is of course possible, here and there.

It should be noted that in the present section only the development of man is discussed. Parallel to it, of course, runs that of the other natural realms, of the mineral, the botanical, the animal. The next sections will deal with these. Then much will be spoken of which will make the discussion concerning man appear in a clearer light. On the other hand, one cannot speak of the development of the terrestrial realms in the sense of the science of the spirit, until the gradual progress of man has been described.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Sandra]

If one traces the development of the earth even further back than was done in the preceding essays, one comes upon increasingly refined material conditions of our planet. The substances which later became solid were previously in a fluid, still earlier, in a vaporous and steam-like, and in an even more remote past, in the most refined (etheric) condition. The decreasing temperature caused the hardening of substances. Here we shall go back to the most refined etheric condition of the substances of our earthly dwelling place. Man first entered upon the earth in this epoch of its development. Before that, he belonged to other worlds, which will be discussed later. Only the one immediately preceding will be indicated here. This was a so-called astral or soul world. The beings of this world did not lead an external, (physical) bodily existence. Neither did man. He had already developed the image consciousness mentioned in the previous essay. He had feelings and desires. But all this was enclosed in a soul body. Only to the clairvoyant eye would such a man have been perceptible.

As a matter of fact, all the more highly developed human beings of that time possessed clairvoyance, although it was quite dull and dreamlike. It was not a self-conscious clairvoyance.

These astral beings are in a certain sense the ancestors of man. What is today called “man” carries the self-conscious spirit within him. This spirit united with the being which had developed from the astral ancestor in about the middle of the Lemurian period. This union has already been indicated in the previous essays. In the description of the course of development of the ancestors of man up to that period which is to follow here, the matter will be discussed again in greater detail.

The soul or astral ancestors of man were transported to the refined or etheric earth. So to speak, they sucked the refined substance into themselves like a sponge, to speak coarsely. By thus becoming penetrated with substance, they developed etheric bodies. These had an elongated elliptical form, in which the limbs and other organs which were to be formed later were already indicated by delicate shadings of the substance. All processes in this mass were purely physical-chemical, but they were regulated and dominated by the soul.

When such a mass of substance had attained a certain size it split into two masses, each of which was similar to the form from which it had sprung, and in it the same processes took place as in the original mass of substance.

Each new form was as much endowed with soul as the mother being. This was due to the fact that it was not a certain number of human souls which entered upon the earthly scene, but rather a kind of soul tree which could produce innumerable single souls from its common root. As a plant sprouts ever anew from innumerable seeds, so the soul life appeared in the countless shoots produced by the continual divisions. It is true that from the beginning there was a narrowly circumscribed number of kinds of souls, of which fact we shall speak later. But within these kinds the development proceeded in the manner which we have described. Each kind of soul put forth innumerable off-shoots.

With their entry into terrestrial materiality, an important change had taken place within the souls themselves. As long as the souls were not connected with anything material, no external material process could act on them. Any action upon them was purely of the nature of soul, was a clairvoyant one. They thus shared in the life of everything pertaining to soul in their environment — All that existed at that time was experienced in this way. The actions of stones, plants, and animals, which then existed only as astral (soul-like) forms, were felt as inner soul experiences.

With the entering upon the earth, something totally new was added to this. External material processes exercised an effect on the soul, which now appeared in material garb. At first it was only the processes of motion in this material outside world which produced movements within the etheric body. As today we perceive the vibration of the air as sound, these etheric beings perceived the vibrations of the etheric matter which surrounded them. Such a being was basically a single organ of hearing. This sense developed first. But one can see from this that separate organs of hearing developed only later.

With the increasing densification of terrestrial matter, the spiritual being gradually lost the ability to mold this matter. Only the bodies which had already been formed could produce their like out of themselves. A new manner of reproduction arose. The daughter being appeared as a considerably smaller form than the mother being and only gradually grew to the size of the latter. While before there had been no organs of reproduction, these now made their appearance.

At this time, however, it is no longer merely a physical-chemical process which takes place in these forms. Such a chemical-physical process could not effect reproduction now. Because of its densification, external matter is no longer such that the soul can give life to it without mediation. Therefore, a certain portion within the form is isolated. This portion is withdrawn from the immediate influences of external matter. Only the body outside of this isolated portion remains exposed to these influences. It is in the same condition in which the whole body was before. In the separated portion, the soul element continues to act. Here the soul becomes the carrier of the life principle, called Prana in theosophical literature. Thus the bodily ancestor of man now appears endowed with two organs. One is the physical body, the physical envelope. It is subject to the chemical and physical laws of the surrounding world. The other is the sum of the organs which are subject to the special life principle.

[Sandra]

A portion of soul activity is freed in this manner. This activity no longer has any power over the physical part of the body. This part of the soul activity now turns inward and forms a portion of the body into special organs. With this an inner life of the body begins. The body no longer merely participates in the vibrations of the outside world, but begins to perceive them within itself as special experiences. Here is the starting point of perception. This perception at first appears as a kind of sense of touch. The organism feels the movements of the outside world; the pressure which substances exercise, and so forth. The beginnings of a perception of heat and cold also appear.

With this an important stage in the development of mankind is reached. The immediate influence of the soul has been withdrawn from the physical body. The latter is totally given over to the physical and chemical world of matter. It disintegrates at the moment the soul can no longer dominate it with its activity. Thereupon occurs that which one calls “death.” In connection with the preceding conditions, there could be no question of death. When a division took place, the mother form survived wholly in the daughter forms. For in these the entire transformed soul energy acted as it did before in the mother form. In the division there was nothing left which did not contain soul. Now this becomes different. As soon as the soul no longer has any power over the physical body, the latter becomes subject to the chemical and physical laws of the outside world, that is, it dies away. As activity of the soul there remains only that which acts in reproduction and in the developed inner life. This means that descendants are produced by the force of reproduction, and at the same time these descendants are endowed with a surplus of organ-forming energy. In this surplus the soul being is constantly reviving. As previously at the time of division, the whole body was filled with soul activity, so the organs of reproduction and perception are now filled with it. We are thus dealing with a reincarnation of the soul life in the newly-developing daughter organism.

In theosophical literature these two stages of the development of man are described as the first two root races of our earth. The first is called the Polarean, the second, the Hyperborean race.

One must imagine the perceptual world of these ancestors of man to have been a quite general and indefinite one. Only two of the types of perception of today had already become separated: the sense of hearing and the sense of touch. Because of the changes that had taken place in the body as well as in the physical environment, the entire human form was no longer capable of being, in a manner of speaking, an “ear.” A special part of the body remained capable of reverberating to delicate vibrations. It furnished the material from which our organ of hearing gradually developed. However, approximately the whole remainder of the body continued to be the organ of touch.

It can be seen that up to this point the entire process of the development of man is connected with a change in the temperature conditions of earth. It was the heat in man's environment which had brought him to the level we have described. But now the external temperature had reached a point where further progress of the human form would no longer have been possible. Within the organism a counter-action against the further cooling of the earth now begins. Man starts to produce his own source of heat. Up to this point he had shared the temperature of his environment. Now organs develop in him which make him able to create the degree of heat necessary for his life. Previously, the circulating substances which passed through him had been dependent on the environment in this respect. Now he himself could develop heat for these substances. The bodily fluids now became warm blood. With this he attained a much higher degree of independence as a physical being than he had possessed before. The whole inner life became more active. Perception still depended entirely on the influences of the outside world. Filled with its own heat, the body acquired an independent physical inner life. Now the soul had a basis inside the body upon which it could develop a life which was no longer merely a participation in the life of the outside world.

Through this process, the life of the soul was drawn into the realm of the earthly-material. Previously, desires, wishes, passions, joy and grief of the soul could only be produced by something that was itself soul-like. That which proceeded from another soul-being awakened sympathy or aversion in the soul, excited the passions, and so forth. No external physical object could have had such an effect. Now only did it become possible for such external objects to have a significance for the soul. For the latter experienced the enhancement of the inner life, which had awakened when the body produced its own heat, as something pleasant, the disturbance of this inner life as something disagreeable. An external object suitable for contributing to physical well-being could be desired, could be wished for. What in theosophical literature is called Kama — the body of wishes — became connected with earthly man. The objects of the senses could now become objects of desire. Through his body of wishes man became tied to earthly existence.

This fact coincides with a great event in the universe, with which it is causally connected. Up to this point there had been no material separation between sun, earth, and moon. In their effect on man these three were one body. Now the separation took place; the more delicate substantiality, which includes everything which had previously made it possible for the soul to act in an immediately vitalizing manner, separated itself as the sun; the coarsest part was extruded as the moon; and the earth, with respect to its substantiality, stood in the middle between the two others. This separation was of course not a sudden one; rather the whole process proceeded gradually while man was advancing from the stage of reproduction by division to the one described last. It was indeed by the universal processes just mentioned that this development of man was brought about. The sun first withdrew its substance from the common heavenly body. Thereby it became impossible for the soul element to vitalize the remaining earthly matter without mediation. Then the moon began to form itself. Thus the earth entered the condition which made possible the capacity for perception characterized above.

In association with this process, a new sense developed. The temperature conditions of earth became such that bodies gradually took on the fixed limits which separated the transparent from the opaque. The sun, which had been extruded from the terrestrial mass, received its task as light giver. In the human body the sense of seeing developed. At first this seeing was not as we know it today. Light and darkness acted upon man as vague sensations. For instance, under certain conditions he experienced light as pleasant, as promoting his physical life, and sought it, strove toward it. At the same time his soul life proper still continued in dreamlike pictures. In this life, colored images which had no immediate relation to external objects arose and vanished. Man still related these colored images to spiritual influences. Light images appeared to him when he was affected by pleasant soul influences, dark images when he was touched by unpleasant soul influences.

Up to now, what was caused by the development of bodily heat has been described as “inner life.” But it can be seen that it was not an inner life in the sense of the later development of mankind. Everything proceeds by stages, including the development of the inner life. As it was meant in the preceding essay, this true inner life begins only with the fertilization by the spirit, when man begins to think about that which acts upon him from the outside.

Everything which has been described here shows how man grew into the condition pictured in the preceding chapter. Essentially one is already moving in the period which was characterized there when one describes the following: The soul learns more and more to apply to external bodily existence that which it had previously experienced within itself and related only to the soul-like. This now happens with the colored images. As before, a pleasing impression of something soul-like had been connected with a luminous image in the soul, now a bright impression of light from the outside became connected with such an image. The soul began to see the objects around it in colors. This was connected with the development of new instruments of sight. At previous stages, for the perception of light and darkness, the body had had an eye which no longer exists today. (The legend of the Cyclops with one eye is a recollection of these conditions-) The two eyes developed when the soul began to connect the light impressions from the outside more intimately with its own life. With this, the capacity for the perception of the soul-like in the environment disappeared. More and more the soul became the mirror of the external world. The outside world is repeated within the soul as image.

Hand in hand with this went the division into sexes. On one side, the human body became receptive only to fertilization by another human being; on the other side there developed the physical “soul organs” (the nervous system) through which the sense impressions of the outside world were mirrored in the soul.

With this, the entry of the thinking spirit into the human body had been prepared.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA011/CM/GA011_c08.html

[Sandra]

Cosmic Memory
Beginning of the Present Earth — Extrusion of the Sun

WE SHALL now follow the Akasha Chronicle back into that remote past in which our present earth had its beginning. By “earth” is to be understood that condition of our planet by virtue of which it can support minerals, plants, animals, and men in their form of today. For this condition was preceded by others in which the natural realms just mentioned existed in considerably different forms. That which one now calls earth went through many changes before it could become the carrier of our present mineral, plant, animal, and human worlds. Minerals for instance also existed under the preceding conditions, but they looked quite different from those of today. These past conditions will be discussed further below. Now we shall only call attention to the manner in which the immediately preceding condition changed into the present one.

One can conceive of such a transformation to some extent by comparing it to the passage of a plant through the seed stage. Imagine a plant with root, stalk, leaves, blossom, and fruit. It takes in substances from its environment and secretes others. But everything in it which is substance, form, and process disappears, except for the small seed. Life develops by passing through it, and in the new year it rises again in the same form. Thus everything which existed on our earth in its preceding condition has disappeared, only to arise again in its present condition. What for the preceding condition one might call mineral, plant, animal has passed away, as in the plant, root, stalk, and so forth, pass away. There as well as here, a germinal stage has remained, from which the old form develops anew. The forces which will cause the new form to emerge lie hidden in the seed.

At the period discussed here we are dealing with a kind of earth germ. This contained within itself the forces which led to the earth of today. These forces were acquired through earlier conditions. This earth germ however must not be imagined as a densely material one, like that of a plant. It was rather of a soul character. It consisted of that delicate, malleable, mobile substance which is called “astral” in occult literature.

In this astral germ of earth there are only human rudiments at first. These are the rudiments of the later human souls. Everything in preceding conditions which was already present as a mineral; plant, or animal nature has been drawn into these human rudiments and become fused with them. Before man enters upon the earth he is a soul, an astral entity. As such he appears on earth. The latter exists in a state of the most highly-refined substantiality, which in occult literature is called the most refined ether. Whence this etheric earth originated will be described in the next essays.

The astral human beings combine with this ether. They impress their nature upon this ether, in order that it can become a likeness of the astral human entity. In this initial condition we are dealing with an ether earth which really consists only of these ether men, which is only a conglomerate of them. Actually the astral body or the soul of man is for the most part still outside the ether body and organizes it from without. To the scientist of the spirit, the earth appears approximately as follows. It is a sphere which in turn is composed of innumerable small ether spheres — the ether men — and is surrounded by an astral envelope just as the present earth is surrounded by an envelope of air. It is in this astral envelope (atmosphere) that the astral men live and whence they act upon their ether likenesses. The astral human souls create organs in their ether likenesses and produce a human ether life in them. Within the whole earth there exists only one condition of matter, the refined living ether. In theosophical books this first humanity is called the first (the Polarean) root race.