The Rudolf Steiner Archive

15. The Evolution of Earth and Humanity

[ 1 ] When I last spoke to you, we turned our gaze upward to the sky, to the planets that have a certain connection to our human organization, to our immediate life. Today, we want to take a closer look at the development of our planetary system insofar as it relates to human beings. You know that we basically always view all development in the cosmos from the perspective of human development. When we cast our gaze back so far, we always do so with the intention of understanding the nature of human beings precisely. In doing so, we are compelled to view the history of the development of our own being from a wide variety of angles. For you can imagine that earlier states of our Earth and other heavenly bodies were no less complicated than our present conditions. And one cannot comprehend the development of our system with just a few ideas; one can only approach this development from different starting points. It may seem as if there are contradictions between the individual images that are created. However, the occult facts are only described from different points of view, as if one were painting a tree from different sides. One could make a hundred pictures of the same tree and still have painted the same tree, but the pictures would be different. So if you want to gain a comprehensive understanding, you have to describe things from different starting points. And once you have gained many characteristics, these will come together like different photographs taken from different spatial viewpoints.

[ 2 ] Today we will describe the development of the earth as it appears to the spiritual eye. We know that our present earthly embodiment was preceded by three others: Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. We also know how to imagine the Saturn state. We cannot imagine that it had a material constitution like our present matter. We distinguish between different types of matter: our solid, material earth; liquid matter, our water; gaseous matter, the air; and the first, more refined state, heat matter. If we had approached the old Saturn, we would only have noticed its existence by entering a warmer space, like an oven. Within this fiery matter, the first formation of the physical body came into being. But this was only a mirror image that was reflected back into the world space.

[ 3 ] After a Pralaya, Saturn passed into the solar state. The matter condenses and becomes gaseous. The human body permeates the etheric body, but everything is still very thin, gaseous matter. And what is present of the physical and etheric bodies appears like a mirage, like a reflection in this sun.

[ 4 ] After another Pralaya state, the sun passes into the lunar state. Matter becomes liquid. The human being permeates itself with the astral body. Now we have an essential event to record during the lunar evolution. What was present in its watery matter was a mixture of today's sun, moon, and earth. But there comes a time when a kind of sun separates itself, with the finest and most living matter and the highest beings. What are now the moon and the earth remained behind as the old moon. At the moment of separation, those beings that remained behind hardened.

[ 5 ] The entire moon ball became a semi-living world body. The lowest realm is between today's mineral and plant kingdoms, the second between the plant and animal kingdoms, and the third between the animal and human kingdoms. What are rocks today were like the wood of trees. The entire earth's mass was like peat or spinach. The mountains were wooded. From this basic substance grew beings that were between our plant and animal kingdoms. Mistletoe has retained the habit of growing on living soil. At that time, however, it had a dim sense of perception; it no longer has this because it has degenerated. The third stage, the human animals, were the ancestors of humans. This form of the old moon developed only after its separation from the sun and orbited around it.

[ 6 ] Then a reunification took place, and after a Pralaya, our Earth appeared. Our Earth had to go through the earlier states again: Saturn, Sun, and Moon. Only then did it produce its actual Earth form. The fact that it initially had a fiery nature is something that has been preserved as a kind of half-suggestion. Physicists say that the Earth developed from a fiery state. But the fiery state was not gaseous, but something completely different from gas as they understand it. Within it, the first beginnings of the physical body formed again. What emerged, however, was different from what had emerged on Saturn. For that had already matured in earlier states on Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon. It was now a more complicated human germ, the result of earlier states, made of fine etheric matter. The Earth consisted of a conglomerate of such human germs. It looked like a blackberry in the finest heat matter. It is nothing other than an amalgamation of human structures in heat matter.

[ 7 ] It is now my task to give an idea of what this first structure looked like. We must make use of what has remained of this first human structure for later times. It is enclosed by other members of human nature. Today it pulsates within us as the inherent warmth of the blood. This is the remnant of the first human structure. What appeared as lines of warmth has been greatly transformed over time. At the top of the head, the child has a soft spot. This is the opening that humans had there in primeval times. There, around the middle of human evolution, a kind of heat organ emerged, a flame-like radiation, like suction arms, like an ethereal lantern—the cyclops eye. But it was not an eye, but a heat organ. Man needed this organ for orientation. At that time, he lived in warmer and colder liquid elements. This organ told them which environment was useful or harmful to them. This organ is a transformation of an organ from the fiery state of the Earth. One must imagine lines of force emanating from it toward the heart, becoming independent without the other limbs already existing, so that it looked like a kind of lantern with suction arms emanating from it, like rays pointing downward, which later became veins. This is the heat human being.

[ 8 ] In this first period of geothermal heat, the Earth was still united with the Sun, Moon, and other planets. Later, a condensation occurred. The heat-material state became a gaseous state. This stage of development is of great significance for human beings. For the development from heat into air was such that lines of air formed around the lines of force of the heat matter. The cycle in the breathing process found its first expression in the development of the earth at that time. Now comes a very important fact. Whenever heat matter condenses into air matter, it dilutes into an even finer state, into light matter. This was the case when Saturn formed into the sun; the gaseous state was permeated by light, shining into the universe. This was also the case when the Earth condensed itself into an air state; it was completely permeated by light, shining out into the universe. The Earth became, so to speak, a sun. Light is the cause of something else; it penetrates the dark heat matter. The first human beings were not luminous; they could at most be felt through differences in heat. Now light surrounds and illuminates this entire system, this warm stream of blood. This light settles in the human body; this is the nervous system. The lines of force, the structural lines of the nervous system, are light that has taken form. The brain was stored as light energy around the fiery matter, around the lantern. The nervous system, which perceives light, was once light itself. And the whole Earth shone out into space.

[ 9 ] Now came the time when the sun peeled itself out of the earth again. The finest substances and beings formed an independent world body, so that our earth revolved around the sun. The emergence of the finest substances was accompanied by a condensation of the remaining matter. On the one hand, the finely luminous body of the sun emerges, and on the other hand, the matter of the earth becomes much denser. It enters a watery state, denser than our sea water, because it also contained everything that is solid today. With the liquefaction, a new element appears. To the extent that water appears, the music of the spheres, the world tones, emanate from the cosmos and from the earth. It is not music like today's, which is propagated through the air. The development of the earth is now under the influence of the music of the worlds. The materials emerge as individual substances from the undifferentiated, great matter. The earth substances begin to dance under the influence of the music of the worlds. This is the differentiation of substances into purely organic substances, for example into protein. Thus, organic matter, the protoplasm, arose under the influence of the music of the worlds, similar to Chladni's sound figures today. These substances, protein-like, gluey substances, are pushed into the former lines of force of the human constitution. The cells, which are now regarded as the first in the evolutionary history of organisms, arose much later. They were first born from certain entities. Even the atom is never the original, it is always what falls out of the whole. The whole is never composed of cells. The whole process was promoted by the fact that the moon was still within the Earth's body. The three human races that lived through these times are the Polar, Hyperborean, and Lemurian races. Then the moon separated from the Earth.

[ 10 ] While the moon was still connected to the earth, something else came into being. It is a time of continuous condensation. Something special happens in the last period of the earth's connection with the moon. The original fire was like the warmth of blood, a living fire. The outer fire emerged at the end of the lunar period. The best way to get an idea of what was created under the influence of physical combustion is to look at a physical burning corpse. What falls out as ashes can be compared to the residue left behind when the earth burns. This is a new impact on the development of our earth. This is how everything mineral came into being. From the organic substances, the mineral, the ashy, falls out like a darkening, a twilight. Before, there were only protein-like substances. Now, clouds of ash appear stored in the protein. These clouds of ash integrate themselves into the organic substances of all the kingdoms of nature, the plant, animal, and human kingdoms.

[ 11 ] If development had continued in this way, everything would have become mummified and rigid. We have already mentioned the significance of the separation of the sun and the moon. The purpose of this separation is that if all the forces and beings had remained connected, human beings would not have been able to accept the conditions of life that they have today. If the sun had remained connected to the earth, human beings would have had conditions of life that were too rapid. If they had been born, they would have grown old immediately. Only highly developed beings could have coped with the vehement development of life. They went with the sun. The other beings had to harden. But the hardening would have become complete; the moon had to leave the earth. In this way, human beings are kept in the right middle. The sun gives the power of progressive, living growth. The moon inhibits this development to the extent that is appropriate for humans. Humans stand in the middle between beings that develop much more quickly than they do and those that develop much more slowly. The sun has taken over the development of life, the moon the development of form. Human beings were given the opportunity to transform the form they had attained. Now they were prepared for the seed of the I to sink in. This sparked the development of human beings in a spiritual direction. That was at the end of the Lemurian epoch. Now human beings had to develop this I on Earth with the help of the other members. This development falls into the last Lemurian, the Atlantean, and our own time.

[ 12 ] But the human ego can only slowly take control of itself. In the beginning, when the physical body was fertilized with the ego, the ego could not yet take control of its development. If we follow the entire development of the Earth, we see that it was initially in a state of heat. At that time, it was not yet separated from the other planets belonging to its system. Physics also recognizes this starting point, but only in a physical sense. It speaks of a dead ball of gas. But it does not answer the question of where life came from. The formation of a planetary system is illustrated with a drop of oil on water; a card is inserted between the drops and rotated with a needle. Small drops then detach themselves. Those conducting the experiment forget that they are standing there and turning the card. They do not explain how the experiment could take place without them. Spiritual beings were connected to this gaseous body, to the heat matter. The reasons why the planets formed can be found in the fact that not only humans developed on our Earth, but also beings that are higher and lower than humans. On ancient Saturn, there were already beings who were going through their human stage. Today, they have advanced far beyond the human stage. Fire spirits on the sun are now two stages higher, and moon people are one stage higher than humans. The people on Saturn were the spirits of personality, but at that time, even higher beings who had been humans in an earlier stage also lived there. All these beings remain connected to the planetary system.

[ 13 ] The Sun separated from the Earth because higher beings were connected to it who needed a different setting. If they had remained with the Earth, they would have been held back in their development. They needed the rapid pace. Now, it was not only such beings who needed the sun, but also the most diverse beings at the most diverse stages of development. Some pushed Uranus away for themselves, and Saturn came into being for certain beings. Jupiter had become another scene. It came into being when the Earth was already shining. Thus, scene after scene separated according to the needs of the spiritual beings. When the sun split off, it took with it certain beings that could not remain connected to the earth but were not yet able to keep up with the sun's rapid pace. These beings were more exalted than humans but not yet as mature as the other beings of the sun. So the sun split off planets for these beings: Mercury and Venus, whose beings stood between the beings of the earth and those of the sun. These beings are also the ones who guided and directed the development of the ego when the ego itself was not yet able to do so. Developing the ego is the mission of Earth's development. Only when Christianity bears its ripest fruit will humans reach their level. The Venus beings worked through the astral or devachanic world, or incarnated in humans and became their leaders. In a way unknown to humans, they planted the seed for further development in humans. From another point of view, they are called the Luciferic beings. The Mercury beings were also connected with the development of the earth. They were the first great teachers in the mysteries. They secretly guided the instruction of the oldest initiates. While the Venus beings have a very long lifespan, the Mercury beings know nothing of birth and death because they have developed budhi. Their consciousness continues uninterrupted through birth and death.

[ 14 ] We have thus discussed some aspects of the development of the Earth, the meaning of the origin of the world sphere and of human beings. This is a new picture of evolution. By describing it from different points of view, one gains a true idea of reality. The moment one becomes dogmatic, one can never penetrate into real occultism. Then, if one seeks to gain an overview as described at the beginning, one can gradually see spiritual life in its reality.