The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The elemental Realms, their Characteristics, and their Effects

[ 1 ] What has been called the elemental realms since ancient times is not as easy to understand as one might think after a superficial examination. For these elemental realms belong to what lies behind the world of perception, behind what immediately presents itself to the senses.

[ 2 ] The best way to approach this consideration is to start from what is sensually perceptible, from those realms that are present in the sensory world of human observation. We have four realms spread out around us on the physical plane: the mineral realm, the plant realm, the animal realm, and the human realm. This is what everyone knows. Now let us clarify what exactly is meant by these four realms, because not everyone has a clear understanding of their precise definition. That is why it is not so easy to gain an understanding of the first, second, and third elemental realms. Especially when talking about such difficult things, one must be careful from the outset not to believe that one can achieve any real goal by simply nailing down a term, putting it in a box, and then keeping it there. In the physical-sensory world, this is still possible; there, things stand next to each other, nicely separated from one another, like a book, a piece of chalk, a rose, and we can stick with assigning this single thing to the concept. Once we have named an object, we can expect to have something specific and distinct. But if we move to the astral plane, which directly borders our world and penetrates it next, this is no longer the case: there is a world of eternal movement. Consider the astral body of the human being, that which surrounds the human being as the aura and is the expression of instincts, desires, and so on. You see that this astral body of the human being is in a constant ebb and flow of colors and forms that change every moment: new colors shine forth, others disappear. This is how it is with human beings. Now there are beings that flit about on the astral plane. Their astral bodies do not belong to a physical body, but they are no less changeable and variable; every second they have a different form, color, and luminosity. Everything on this astral plane is the continuous expression of what is inside these beings. We would find ourselves in a very difficult position if we wanted to make our concepts as rigid and unchangeable there as they are on the physical plane; we must adapt to the mobility of forms, we must have flexible concepts, we must be able to apply a concept in one way and then in another.

[ 3 ] This is even more so in the higher worlds. From a higher perspective, everything in the physical world is an expression of the forces and beings of those higher worlds. Such forces and beings are hidden in everything we see around us. This is precisely what constitutes the diversity of beings in the physical world. For example, you see the mineral kingdom around you; all the apparently lifeless beings on our earth, all minerals, belong to it. You are told at first that these minerals on earth have no etheric body, no astral body, no ego. But this is only true for the physical world. You need to know this in order to gain clarity about what is on the physical plane. But if someone comes along and says, “The mineral is something that only has a physical body,” this is just as wrong as it would be to say, “The mineral kingdom is something that only has a physical body on the physical plane.” For from a true spiritual point of view, the mineral is such that it has its physical body here on the physical plane and nothing else. If we want to find the etheric body, we must ascend to the astral plane; there the etheric body is to be found. The moment a person becomes an astral clairvoyant, they see the etheric body of the mineral on the astral plane and only its physical body here on the physical plane. Viewed more comprehensively, the mineral also has an astral body, but this cannot be found on the astral plane; it must be sought in the lower regions of the devachan. On the higher mental plane, the Arupa mental plane, is the mineral's I; from there the mineral is directed by its I. If you want to imagine this in a rough way, you must say to yourself: I imagine a person who is clairvoyant up to the Devachan plane. To this clairvoyant, who still sees on the Arupa plane, minerals appear similar to human nails, for minerals are, as it were, the nails of beings who have their I on the upper Devachan. You cannot imagine nails without humans; so it is with minerals and their I.

[ 4 ] Let us consider a rock crystal here on Earth: if you look away from it, there in the astral world is the etheric body that animates the physical body. But you would not be able to perceive that anything hurts the mineral if you did something to it. Only in Devachan do you find the pleasure and joy, suffering and pain of the mineral, but in a completely different way than one usually imagines. The mineral's perception of pain is not like that of animals; one must not imagine that the mineral feels pain when it is hammered and broken. When workers in a quarry split minerals, seemingly damaging them, this is actually a feeling of well-being, a feeling of pleasure for the minerals in Devachan. So for them it is exactly the opposite of what it is in the human and animal kingdoms. When you come to the Devachan plane, you can meet the spirits of minerals there. However, a mineral personality does not consist of just one mineral, but of an entire system, just as your individual fingernails do not have separate souls. If someone wanted to imagine that everything astral must be on the astral plane, they would be on the wrong track. It is so obvious to always look for the astral on the astral plane, but a distinction must be made between the inner nature of a being and the environment in which it lives. Just as your ego has no physical nature and yet lives on the physical plane, so the astral body of the mineral does not live on the astral plane, but in the lower devachan. We must not take the concepts schematically, but must work our way through to a more precise definition of things.

[ 5 ] Let us now take the plant as it appears to us; here on the physical plane it has a physical body and an etheric body. It has both of these here, but where must you look for the astral body of the plant? In the astral world, and the I in the lower parts of the Devachan. Let us go further, up to the animal. The animal has its physical body, its etheric body, and its astral body in the physical-sensory world, but it has its I on the astral plane. This means that just as you encounter human beings here as persons, as individual beings, you find the animal I's on the astral plane as individual personalities. We must understand them in this way: All groups that have the same form have a common ego. Human beings differ from them in that each has an individual ego. On the astral plane, there are the lion ego, the tiger ego, and so on; there they are separate beings; the individual species egos populate the astral plane just as human beings populate the physical-sensory world. For humans, however, the physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I have descended to the physical plane. But this is only in the waking state; it is different for sleeping humans. In the physical world, there is the physical body and the etheric body, and on the astral plane, there is the astral body and the I. Thus, in the state of sleep, the fourfold human being is distributed between the physical plane and the next higher plane, the astral plane. The human being is then on the physical plane at the level of a plant (see diagram on p. 134).

[ 6 ] We have already learned here the different ways in which we must use the terms “astral” and so on. We can only come to a thorough understanding when we realize that things cannot be moved around like figures on a chessboard. When we now consider the human being himself, we must view him in the following way. We have the physical body, the etheric and astral bodies, and the I. It has already been emphasized here several times that it is important that we are not unclear about the relationship between the four members. It is easy to think that the physical body is the most imperfect and lowest. In a certain sense, however, it is the most perfect, for it has undergone four successive stages of development: on Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. The etheric body has attained only three degrees of perfection; it was added to the physical body only on the Sun. It will one day rise to a higher level, although today it is not yet as perfect as the physical body. The astral body was only added on the moon; it has only reached a twofold degree of perfection. The ego is the “baby” among the four members of the human being; it was only added on Earth and is only at the beginning of its development; it has a constantly corrupting effect on the other bodies. An anatomist who contemplates the wonderfully organized physical body marvels at the perfection of the heart and the brain. How imperfect, in contrast, are the desires, the impulses of the ego! The ego has a desire for wine, beer, and so on, which have a destructive effect throughout life, and yet the physical body withstands these attacks for decades. Now we must make clear to ourselves how the ego has been worked into the physical body and how the physical body first came into being.

[ 7 ] First there was the Saturn evolution. That was the first phase of evolution for the precursor of our physical body. At that time, the physical body of the human being had the cosmic value of a mineral. If you look at a mineral today, you see in it a backward stage of existence; it has preserved the stage that the physical body had on Saturn. You must not imagine that the physical body looked like our minerals today; that would be completely wrong. Today's minerals are the most recent formations of evolution. In particular, the human body was not as dense back then; the density of the physical human body was very low.

[ 8 ] We must imagine the relationships between the material stages. The first is what we call earth, that is, everything that is today called a solid body, iron, copper, zinc, and so on; everything that is solid is earth. Secondly, everything that is liquid is water, for example mercury; even if you make iron liquid, it is water. Every liquid metal is water in the sense of spiritual science. Thirdly, if you cause water to evaporate or anything to take on a vaporous form, including metal vapor, it is air. Spiritual science goes even further: it shows that air as such can be further diluted, can transition into thinner states. Here we must go beyond today's physical understanding; here the spiritual researcher posits heat ether or fire. For the spiritual researcher, fire is something that belongs to the line of earth, water, and air, whereas modern science sees it only as a state of the body.

[ 9 ] On Saturn, warmth was the substance of the physical body of the human being. On the sun, the physical human body was condensed to the density of air, and within it the etheric or life body was deposited and transformed the physical body; here we have a physical human body with an etheric body working within it; this etheric body is single-layered, while the physical body is double-layered on the sun. We must distinguish between a more perfect and an imperfect part of the physical body on the sun, one that has not yet been permeated by the etheric body. With this image of the physical body on the sun, we must think: the interior has not received anything from the etheric body; it is of the same value as the physical body already was on Saturn. Thus, we already have a part at the plant stage that is interspersed with another part that is still at the mineral stage; but the two penetrate each other completely (see drawing 1).

[ 10 ] We now turn to the physical body on the moon. Here it was already condensed to the state of water. The etheric and astral bodies are integrated into it. Three different parts can be distinguished here. One is permeated by the etheric and astral bodies, one is permeated only by the etheric body, and one has remained mineral (see drawing 2).

[ 11 ] Now let us consider the physical body on Earth. Here the I comes into play. On earth there are four interwoven members. The first part is permeated by the etheric body, the astral body, and the I; the second part by the etheric and astral bodies; the third part only by the etheric body; and a fourth member is still on the mineral level. It has the value of a mineral and is still on the Saturn stage today. These four members can be clearly distinguished in the physical body. The first member, into which all four members are woven, is the red blood cells. Wherever we have red blood, the four members are woven into it (see drawing 3).

[ 12 ] The nerves are the second member. Wherever there are nerves, the physical body, etheric body, and astral body are woven into them. Wherever there are glands, the physical body and etheric body are woven into them. All sensory organs, all physical apparatus in humans have only reached the level of a mineral. They follow exactly the same laws as minerals. The eye and ear belong to the mineral inclusions; there are also such parts in the brain. You see how tempting it is sometimes to become a materialist, because something that is mineral pervades the entire body. When the materialist says that the brain is mineral, he is partly right if he considers only one aspect. In particular, there are certain parts of the forebrain that are permeated by other influences, but in which only mineral forces are active. If we were to consider bones and muscles, it would become even more complicated.

[ 13 ] When the I entered into human beings, it began to develop the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul, and it developed the bones and muscles. It takes years just to distinguish these things properly if one wants to examine them closely. One must patiently follow them piece by piece.

[ 14 ] When we now have a sleeping human being before us, the physical body and etheric body lie in the bed. But this physical body is very complicated. In the waking state, the astral body and the I work on it in the blood. When the physical body lies in bed and the person is asleep, what happens? — The etheric body continues to provide what it can, but the astral body and the I would have to work together to maintain the blood, otherwise the blood would die every night, because it depends on the I and the astral body, but these leave the body faithlessly. The entire nervous system is also despicably abandoned, for which the astral body would also have to cooperate. We are therefore faced with the remarkable fact that blood and the nervous system should actually die every night; they would be doomed to death if it were up to human beings. Other beings must step in, other entities must take over the work of human beings. Other entities must intervene from other worlds in order to properly preserve what he despicably abandons. Let us try to explain what these entities are that intervene and enable humans to preserve their blood.

[ 15 ] We can form an idea of these beings in the following way. Let us ask ourselves: Where does the human ego actually live when it lives here on the physical plane? In which of the three kingdoms? — Here you must ask yourself: What can we actually perceive without clairvoyance? — We can only perceive the mineral kingdom. This is the peculiar thing about human beings: they do not even fully understand plants until they have developed astral clairvoyance. Because human beings currently only perceive the mineral aspect of plants, materialists claim that plants are merely a conglomeration of mineral processes. Once human beings have worked on themselves to the point where they have reached the first stage of clairvoyance, the life of plants and the laws of life will be as clear to them as the laws of the mineral world are to us now.

[ 16 ] If you assemble a machine or build a house, these are constructed according to the laws of the mineral world. A machine is built according to the laws of the mineral world, but we cannot build a plant in this way. If you want to have a plant, you must leave this work to the beings that underlie nature. Later, it will be possible to produce plants in the laboratory, but only when this becomes a sacrament, a sacred act for humans. All representations of living beings will only be permitted to humans when they have become so serious and purified that the laboratory table becomes an altar to them. Before that, not the slightest detail of how living beings are put together will be revealed. In other words, the ego as a perceiving entity lives in the mineral kingdom and will ascend to the plant kingdom, where it will learn to understand it just as it understands the mineral kingdom today. Later, it will also learn to understand the laws of the animal kingdom and then those of the human kingdom. All people will learn to understand the inner nature of plants, animals, and humans; these are the prospects for the future. What one truly understands can also be represented, for example, a clock. Today's human being will never be able to represent anything from living nature without the help of the beings behind nature, as long as it is not a sacramental act for him. Only then will he ascend from the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom. Human beings today are human beings, but they only perceive the mineral kingdom. The human ego lives in human form, but when the human ego looks at the environment, it only perceives the mineral kingdom. This ego therefore initially only has the ability to live through the blood in a mineral way, because it cannot do more than that. Even though the ego lives in the blood during the day, inhabits it and lives through it, it does so only in a mineral way. How does it do this? When you look out into the world, your knowledge reveals the laws of the mineral kingdom to you. Observe this peculiar nature of human activity. You look out with your senses and take in the laws of the mineral kingdom, imprinting these laws on the blood while you are awake, forcing them into the entire blood, enlivening the blood in a mineral way. This is the peculiar course of what happens in cognition. Imagine the human being schematically (see drawing): the laws of the mineral world stream into him from all sides. But they do not remain at the sense organs; they flow with the blood through the whole human body in the waking state.

[ 17 ] What does the plant world do? You will understand how it is with plants if you consider the following carefully. You have always been told that the ego works on other bodies and transforms the astral body into the spirit self. To the same extent that this happens, the laws of the plant kingdom flow into the human nervous system. When a person reaches the next stage of clairvoyance, the laws of the animal kingdom flow into their glandular system, and when a person works to transform the physical body, the laws of the human kingdom itself flow into the human body. All this is meant for the waking state and for the states of higher clairvoyant consciousness. Man has now reached the stage where the I allows the laws of the mineral kingdom to flow into the blood. The I can only do this in the waking state; only then do the mineral laws enter the blood. When man sleeps, the blood must also be supplied. And because this blood has been worked on through four stages, three other forces must come into play. First, a force that is most closely related to the way the ego works into the blood; this force is one that has not descended to the physical plane. The blood would die if another ego did not work on it while the human being sleeps. Another I, which has remained above on the astral plane, intervenes and temporarily takes over the work on the blood. When we consider human blood, this “special juice,” during waking hours the human I works on the physical plane, and at night an I that is on the astral plane works on the blood. There are such I's.

[ 18 ] Now I have previously mentioned selves on the astral plane, the group selves of animals; now we have another kind of self that lives on the astral plane and works on the human being and animates the blood while the human self has left it. With what? What do they bring into the blood? That which must be in the human body since Saturn: fire, warmth. These are spirits that have never descended to the physical plane, spiritual beings that live on the astral plane and have a body of fire. In the mineral kingdom, every thing appears to us in a certain state of warmth. You encounter warmth in your environment as a property of solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies. Imagine heat in isolation — it does not exist on the physical plane. But on the astral plane you would find such heat flowing back and forth, such fire moving back and forth as an independent being, embodying entities just as we ourselves were on Saturn. These enter the blood at night and enliven it with their warmth. But something else must also take place, for the blood is also abandoned by the astral body, and this too is necessary for its formation. It is therefore not enough for these I-beings to come forward at night and work on the human being with their heat body; beings must also come in who can work on the blood in the same way as the astral body does. These beings have their ego on the Devachan plane; this ego has a much higher body that has not even condensed to the level of warmth. The ego I described first never descended to the physical world; it remained on the astral plane. The second ego descended even less; it never entered the astral plane and remained on the Devachan plane. It permeates the blood and does in it the same thing that the human astral body does during the day.

[ 19 ] So you see how we are indeed guarded and protected at night by higher beings who do not live in the mineral kingdom. The human ego descended to the mineral kingdom and will then ascend to the plant kingdom and so on. These other egos have gradually remained behind the human kingdom: they form the hidden kingdoms, the elemental kingdoms, which lie behind our physical world and influence our physical world. The first being that works in the blood at night has a warmth body, just as you have a physical body; it permeates the blood with warmth and lives on the astral plane in the warmth body, and through this warmth body it belongs to the third elemental realm. These beings of the third elemental realm are the companions of the group souls of animals; they belong to the same region. And what can these I's actually do? — They do not need to be able to do what the human I can do, which has descended into the physical-sensory world; but they can replace the human I from the astral plane. These I's work from the astral plane in the same way as the animal group I's work on animals, which is why we perceive them as beings similar to the animal group I's, that is, they animate the human astral body with drives, desires, and passions. If we now have an astral body before us, what lives in this astral body? — In addition to the ego, there are other beings living in it who have their ego on the astral plane. They permeate the astral body like maggots in cheese. This is the third elemental kingdom; this kingdom shapes the animalistic instincts and passions.

[ 20 ] Behind this lies another kingdom: the second elemental kingdom. It works and shapes in a purer element, it forms and structures the shapes of plants; it also works on humans through their many plant elements: nails, hair, and so on. These are not permeated by the astral body, but only by the etheric body, which is why they are not sensitive to pain. Hair and nails are products from which the astral body has already withdrawn; they can be cut without causing pain; the astral body used to be in them. Much in human beings is of a vegetative nature, and the beings of the second elemental kingdom work into all this vegetative nature. Thus, what builds up the body in plants are forces of the second elemental kingdom. In plants, the plant ego, which permeates the etheric and astral bodies, works together with these beings of the second elemental kingdom. The plant ego on the Devachan plane is a companion of the beings of the second elemental kingdom. And while the plant ego works on the plant from within, these beings work from without, shaping it, bringing it to fruition, causing it to blossom. The entire plant is permeated by the etheric body. However, the plant does not have its own astral body; rather, the entire astral body of the Earth is the collective astral body of all plants. The plant's ego is located at the center of the Earth for all plants. All group egos of plants are centralized at the center of the Earth. That is why, when you pull up a plant, you hurt the earth; but when you pick a flower, it is as pleasant for the earth as it is for a cow when her calf suckles her milk. It is also a wonderful impression when you mow the seeds and grain in autumn, how great streams of well-being flow over the earth! The beings that work from the second elemental kingdom and cause the plants to grow fly to the plant from all sides like butterflies. They work on the repetition of the leaves, flowers, and so on. This is what influences from the second elemental kingdom.

[ 21 ] There is also a first elemental kingdom, which gives minerals their form. Animals derive their instinctive form from the beings of the third elemental kingdom. The leaves and so forth of plants are formed by the second elemental kingdom, which works mainly in repetition. The formative forces of minerals, which work out of formlessness, are to be found in the higher Devachan. These three elemental realms interpenetrate and flow into one another. Anyone who imagines them as separate can never arrive at real ideas. In the plant kingdom, you have the plant kingdom and the mineral kingdom; in the animal kingdom, you have the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the mineral kingdom intertwined. In humans, the I is added. With the introduction of the I, the human kingdom first came into being on Earth. The I is what makes humans human; it finds its expression in the blood. However, the I can only penetrate the mineral kingdom through recognition; it must leave the other kingdoms to the beings of the elemental kingdoms. In addition to the mineral kingdom, the first elemental kingdom is also contained within the mineral kingdom, which is why we have a formed mineral kingdom. The plant is only a formed plant through the second elemental kingdom; otherwise it would be spherical. The animal is equipped with instincts and so on because the third elemental kingdom is added. Our world is something that is intertwined; only when we make our concepts fluid do we gradually come to understand the matter.

[ 22 ] If we want to imagine how this works with the third elemental realm in the animal kingdom, we can clarify it with an example. You are all familiar with the flight of birds. Birds have very specific paths for their migrations, from northeast to southwest, from southwest to northeast. Who directs these migrations? The group souls of the birds. These migrations express the urge for regular wanderings across the earth; here the generic or group souls of the animals direct. On the other hand, the beings of the third elemental kingdom, the companions of the animal group souls, give the animals their form so that they can have this urge, so that they have a vehicle for the urge. Trivially, one would say: Those I's that are the group souls of the animals are a society on the astral plane; another society is the beings of the third elemental kingdom. But they must work together in harmonious unity, some providing the instincts, the others the bodies, shaping and forming them so that the instincts can be lived out.

[ 23 ] The physical forms of plants originate from the beings of the second elemental kingdom. Everything that is formed in minerals is the work of the beings of the first elemental kingdom. The forces of minerals, which act as repulsion and attraction, the atomistic forces, originate from the group egos of minerals. What forms minerals are the beings of the first elemental kingdom.

[ 24 ] This opens up a perspective from which to search for the effects of the realms in our world. However, one must engage with these things very carefully. Thus, one can say to a plant: You are a living being; you owe this to the plant ego. But the beings of the second elemental kingdom give you your form.

[ 25 ] This brings together the various realms. There are seven of them. The first elemental realm is the one that gives minerals their form, for example crystals. The second elemental realm works in the formation of plant forms. The third elemental realm animates the blood in sleep and at the same time shapes the instinctual life of animals. The mineral realm is where an ego can work its way into the mineral realm, the plant realm is where an ego can shape a plant world, the animal realm is where an ego can shape an animal world, and the human realm is where an ego can shape a human world. From this we can see that patience is necessary for penetrating spiritual science. The world is complicated, and the highest truths are not the simplest. It is utterly foolish to claim that the highest things can be grasped with the simplest concepts. This comes only from laziness. We understand that we cannot understand a clock immediately, but we want to understand the world immediately. If we want to know the divine, we need endless patience, because the divine contains everything. In order to understand the world, one wants to use the simplest concepts. That is convenience, however pious it may sound. The divine is profound, and it takes eternal time to recognize it. Man may carry the spark of divinity within himself, but only by gathering the facts of the world can one recognize the essence of divinity.

[ 26 ] We must first learn great patience and renunciation of knowledge. One must mature to reach a judgment. The world is infinite in every point. And one must have the humility to say that everything is, in a sense, only half true. Everything must be transformed into moral impulses, even the division of the human being into ten and twelve members. Spiritual science provides images to which the feelings should attach themselves. Spiritual science is only of value if we not only draw knowledge from it, but are filled with the noblest feelings for the depth of the environment. The greater the longing for the divine becomes. Because the divine appears to human beings as something distant and exalted, they should strive all the more to become strong in order to attain it again.