FMC00.210B

Schema FMC00.210B: shows a translated version of the original drawing by Rudolf Steiner in the lecture of 1907-11-22-GA100. This drawing and lecture has been misinterpreted outside of a spiritual scientific framework and understanding by groups and forces whose aim is to accuse anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner's teachings of racism. See 'Further reading' section on the Human races page for an extensive coverage of sources who correct these wrongful attacks.

For this reason specific details on the Scheme are added. The two blackboard sketches part of this lecture have been merged, and terminology has been adapted to contemporary language versus the terms used over 100 years ago in context of an audience who had another understanding of these words as part of a larger knowledge framework of human races. Specifically: the word 'epoch' has been added to the evolutionary periods; an explanation has been added in light grey for the 'monera'; the term 'Indianer' has been replaced with 'ancient American Indians' (not to be confused with native americans as we know them today, as here the remnant of the Saturn sub-race of the Atlantean epoch is meant - see Schema FMC00.186 and Schema FMC00.204); and the term 'dekadente Abzweigung' is translated by 'declining branch(ing)', as it branches off in a declining fashion relative to the main evolutionary pathway (see Schema FMC00.546).

Commentary

Note 1 - about declining branches - worldview of human evolution, and racism

Introduction

This note aims to provide additional comments to the schema, given the fact it has been widely distributed out of context and without any positioning in terms of the underlying worldview. Just like homeopathy or other examples, this is another example of worldview wars. A different paradigm causes conflicts, and there are always proponents who take up such conflicts to actively go to war, especially those forces hostily to spiritual science.

If one is not interested in the context below, one should not be interested in this one drawing by Rudolf Steiner either, and not take offense to something that one does not understand or does not want to understand.

Background

Physical bodies are not the full human being

Schema FMC00.210B has a very wide scope: it intends to show the evolution of the physical bodies on Earth, including the very start of the animal kingdom, upto the bodies in the Lemurian epoch that allowed the descent of the monads and the start of humanity as we know it.

So the first thing to bear in mind is that, as per Schema FMC00.210, this is only the lower part of evolution and the development of the physical bodies, and that humanity was still spiritual at that stage and only descended into physical bodies starting in the middle of the Lemurian epoch.

Evolutionary periods have very different conditions

Rudolf Steiner describes that conditions on Earth were completely different in the Lemurian and Atlantean epochs, and these bodies had nothing to do with what we can currently imagine. It needs to be clear that due to separation of Sun and separation of Moon, conditions on Earth were completely different from what we have today, and this goes for the constitution of the Earth itself ànd all kingdoms of nature. For a broader overview, see ao Earth's seven epochs and (zooming out further) FMC00.006A on Evolution of Earth

The various spiritual influences of the 'I' moulded the human physical body

Then, to develop an understanding how the human races connect or link into this schema FMC00210B, Schema FMC00.546 is proposed as the frame to start from. The human races topic page covers how the form of the physical mineral body of Man was developed in the Atlantean epoch, up to the form it has now. Key influences were the different group souls of humanity that 'moulded' the physical form from the I downwards, and the influences of the different irregular Luciferic beings and geographical areas, giving rise to the variants of the physical body (see also Schema FMC00.456).

Evolution takes it course, and with varying conditions forms and contents change: some go away other new arise

Now Schema FMC00.546 shows that, whereas the development of the physical bodily structures evolved to ever greater complexity, many branches also developed that did not survive evolution in the changing conditions on Earth. This was the case in all kingdoms of nature (many or most animal forms of these epochs died out), but also for the form bodies of the earliest humanity as some races from the Lemurian epoch died out. This is what Schema FMC00.546 represents. Various theosophical sources describe these different predecessors of current humanity in more detail, for a start see Arthur E. Powell: 'The Solar System' on Atlantean epoch#References and further reading.

Hence the branches of the main races of the Atlantean epoch (and before) at the start of the current epoch and the world population today

Considering the transition between the Atlantean and Current Postatlantean epoch, also conditions on Earth changed, and even though there were the migrations and the great flood, the Earth population was a mixture of the part of the Atlantean epoch that survived, which included the main races in the different geographies or continents. These main races therefore have different roots going back in earlier epochs.

What Rudolf Steiner describes is that the Asian yellow race survived in Tibet and China, as remnants of the sixth and seventh sub-races, the very last cultures in the Atlantean epoch. For example .. "five to seven millenia ago, the culture in Asia was the same as it was on this Atlantean continent which is today under the sea between Europe and America ... that Atlantean culture of that area survived in Tibet" (1924-05-20-GA353)

Similarly the copper-red race populated the Americas in the Atlantean epoch, see eg the fourth Atlantean sub-race of the Toltecs. And though all these cultures populated the world over many millenia, their branches still populated the continents. Hence the red American-Indian population can be seen as the continuation of this branch of development of physical bodies, just as the yellow Asian population is also.

The physical body is not the human being

What Rudolf Steiner describes, is that human souls incarnate in various human races and cultures, see:

Human races#Difference between soul development and race development

The important implication is that no value judgement is coupled in any way to the skin colour.

Older and newer branching

Some older branches are past their peak, originate in earlier times, and those branchings of the physical body are on their descent, dying out. Other branches are newer and have a further future, as they are more centric to the current developmental targets for the period of evolution. Nevertheless due to the wide variety of developmental maturity of souls, humanity still needs all these conditions to allow souls to go through all the necessary experience.

Thus more concretely, what is also described is that, if one considers all different constitutions of the various races (and this is important: not limited to skin colour, see Schema FMC00.186 and Schema FMC00.204), that in this mix some physical bodies are less 'fit' to host the next developmental stage in the evolution of mankind vs others. This is not a fixed situation but one that evolves over long time period, as the human constitution changes: the nervous system changes, the astral body, and the Human 'I', see Development of the I.

In the future, the physical bodies of humanity will change further as the etheric body will more 'imprint' the moral soul conditions of the astral body and I onto the physical (see Man past and future). And in the next Sixth epoch, Man will have again a very different form, and part of humanity will already spiritualize.

The schema and what spiritual science conveys

More specifically then, going full circle back to the Schema, and putting in perspective

Hence, the way how to read the Schema is that Rudolf Steiner was describing here that the physical mineral body went through a long evolution .. and that various animal group souls in the astral world 'above' took hold of physical bodies 'below' first (see animal kingdom). The last of these were the apes, this was just before conditions on Earth, and the physical bodies, reached the potential to be a carrier of the human 'I'.

Then the group souls of humanity 'took hold' of physical bodies below too, and this was the start of current humanity. However this process that brought the complexity of the various human races, similarly includes the same principle .. that some races are on their 'way back', such as the American-Indian red race. This is not to be confused with the current 'native americans', but what is meant is the red race that inhabited the Americas millenia ago. However, we do not have any scientific of historical views over these long time periods.

As another example, not on a diagram, Rudolf Steiner also gave the example of the aboriginals in Australia which are a remnant of another ancient branch going back even further. Again, this does not give a value judgement. What matters is to gain an understanding of evolution as a whole, and an appreciation of how human souls and spirits need to use the physical bodies available for their soul evolution.

This is why souls are eager to descend to Earth (Schema FMC00.362, because it's the place required to develop the next principle, and only on Earth can one get these valuable learning experiences with incarnate life.

This theme of the importance of the physical bodily carrier has many chapters, some related ones just as a means of example:

• in the Northern stream of development in the Current postatlantean epoch, the Mysteries and Initiation centers with the leadership of mankind guided the development of the human physical body, so as to gather the strength and constitution to be the carrier for the consciousness soul in the fifth cultural age. See Schema FMC00.476 on Two streams of development and more details on the Nerthus topic page.
• the effect of drugs, and how it pulls down large segments of human physical bodies, making them unavailable or unfit for future development. See example on Sixteen paths of perdition#Note 3 - The opium war and Model for hereditary physical body#Note 1 - Effects of substances

Further comments to the schema:

• In terms of terminology, with the term 'Aryan', Steiner denotes with another label the Current Postatlantean epoch, and its stem race or main root (see FMC00.546). That main root changes with each epoch.
• Schema FMC00.210B shows four main epochs where the focus is on the animal kingdom, and it's true that it's unfortunate and gives rise to misunderstandings, just on the upper right, the switch is made to the human being and the current epoch. In that sense the diagram's title above 'development of mankind' and 'human being' are misleading and not well chosen, as the majority of what is shown here is the development of the animal kingdom. The explanation is simple: the important thing to note is that this illustration was never intended to stand on its own, Rudolf Steiner used a blackboard and made notes during a lecture; and so the contents of the lecture is essential, and the Schema should never be interpreted on its own or without this. This note complements the lecture contents in that respect.

Conclusion - zooming out

The most important developmental goal of the whole Earth evolution is the development of the fourth human bodily principle, the human 'I'. This is a process over long epochs of evolution, called 'individuation' from the group souls of humanity to independent spirits - see Development of the I#Note 1 - Narrative to the Development of the Human I

And to accomodate that, physical bodies are needed on Earth, and the many various conditions offered in the different cultures, human races, and cultural ages and epochs of evolution (something illustrated also with Schema FMC00.550)

The physical body is a necessary carrier to develop the balanced threefold soul, and especially the consciousness soul requires the strength of the physical body. And the consciousness soul, the developmental target for humanity in this current cultural age of a few millenia, is crucial to allow the fructification by the Christ Impulse, as depicted with Schema FMC00.468 and Schema FMC00.438