Old Moon

Old Moon references the third planetary stage in the evolution of our current solar system, and the previous incarnation of our current planet Earth.

This predecessor of current Earth was living mobile organism of plant and animal like nature, with beings living on it linked to and part of it like parasites today.

The angels passed through the CoC=4 'human stage' and provided the then animal-men predecessors of current humanity with the foundation of the astral body.

Aspects

Planet and environment

• Old Moon is also called the cosmos or planet of wisdom (1907-11-19-GA100, 1908-05-20-GA103)
  • the Old Moon the environment consisted not only of air, but also of ether filled with wisdom: thoughts were not in the individual beings but they flew hither and thither in the ether. Old Moon was surrounded by warmth and other ethers in which lived intelligence and reason, just as they now live in the human brain. (1905-10-02-GA093a)
• atmosphere and influences
  • At that time the air was still wholly filled with spirit. Just as today’s Earth is surrounded by physical air, so Old Moon was enveloped in something that was full of soul substance. (1907-03-04-GA096)
  • smoke-like, steam-like atmosphere of fire-air or fire-mist ... air in which watery, mist-like substances are dissolved .. and with a certain degree of heat or warmth. This fire-air was called 'ruach' in Hebrew tradition. Ancient alchemist could still create this to bring elemental beings to life. (1907-06-03-GA099)
  • the Old Moon environment was characterized by nitrogen, just as there is an abundance of oxygen on current Earth. It was the predominance of nitrogen which brought about the end of the Old Moon period and the onset of the cosmic night. (1906-06-11-GA094).
  • What man had around him in the Old Moon existence, he has today within himself as forces of Moon that live within him. On Old Moon the forces lived in the environment which now live in plants and animals for the purpose of reproduction. Man developed sexual forces in/after the Lemurian epoch due to the soul of the Moon which now lives in Man. (1905-10-09-GA93A)

three kingdoms: mineral-plant, plant-animal and animal-man

• Old Moon as a cosmic body was a kind of half living creature. Imagine a peat bog, though with more life in it than today’s peat – a vegetable mush, like spinach perhaps. This mushy substance contained woody material. Instead of the rocks we have today, there was a kind of woody foundation on Old Moon, and above this a mass that was half plant, half stone ... on which grew life-forms grew that were halfway between plants and animals. (1907-03-04-GA096)
• planetary body of Old Moon with three kingdoms (1906-06-11-GA094, 1907-06-03-GA099, 1909-06-09-GA109) after the separation of Sun:
  • mineral-plant kingdom (mineral substance that was plantlike in character, or, plant substance that was mineral in character:
    • semi-solid, semi-fluid ground surface was like turf; resembled a peaty soil. Old Moon-beings went about on a (half-living) vegetable-mineral mass of pulp-like consistency ... "think of a mass of spongy, plantlike substance" ... "one could compare it with a boiled lettuce".
    • Nothing would have been found resembling our rocks of today; instead, there were horny or woody formations. Old Moon-mountains consisted of such lignification, wooden masses of lignified plant-pulp .. like a kind of aged plant grown dry.
    • note: "The ground of our earth today has become comparatively static; volcanic activity is the only reminder of such inner life." (1909-06-09-GA109)
  • plant-animal:
    • beings by nature half-plant, half-mollusc ... plants forming a kind of pulpy plant-mass .. they could make no independent movements, but were fixed to the ground, as corals today.
    • In the environment, like a kind of atmosphere, were cloud-masses composed of a half-watery, half-living substance in which the beings of the plant-animal kingdom were embedded. ... plants were not rooted in mineral soil as today but in the half-living ground of the planet. If you crush a tree, causing something akin to the feeling experienced by an animal, that would be remotely comparable with what was experienced by this plant-animal kingdom. (1909-06-09-GA109)
    • note: Mistletoe is a descendant or straggler of an Old Moon form, that is obliged to take root in plant-soil. "Mistletoe is a survival of the parasitic plant-beings (parasitic because it has not learned, to live directly upon mineral substance like other plants) ... hence its peculiar properties known to the Druids who spoke of it as the most sacred of all plants." (1906-05-27)
  • third kingdom: 'animal-man' (see below under aspect 'spiritual hierarchies')
• Old Moon was like a great organism, living and mobile, on which the beings living might have felt like parasites of today. (1909-06-09-GA109)
• beings of Old Moon breathed this fire-air or fire-mist of air permeated by watery substances. They had no lungs, even the highest beings breathed through something akin to gills, as present-day fishes do.

Separation of Old Moon from Sun

• The Sun separated from the planetary body together with the finest substances and higher beings from the less progressed part Old Moon (containing all that constitutes our present earth and present moon) that remained as a kind of cloud-body. This brought about a densification or hardening on Old Moon and the beings inhabiting it as the Sun forces worked upon Old Moon from outside. The three kingdoms on Old Moon came into existence after this separation. (1909-06-09-GA109)
• The Sun separated off for the first time during the Old Moon evolution. (1904-GA011)
  • It was then that the light was for the first time active from without, but not then as light. The SoF were in the light, but saw it not, were a bearer of the work in cosmic space (1910-08-23-GA122)
  • see Schema FMC00.181 and Schema FMC00.182 below for this split into two bodies of Sun' and Old Moon'
• after separation of Sun' and Old Moon'
  • Old Moon circled round the Sun, but not as our Earth does today but in such a way that only one side was turned towards the Sun, so an Old Moon-day therefore lasted as long as a half year does today. As a result, on the one side there was an intense heat and on the other side an intense cold. (1905-10-25-GA093A, 1907-06-03-GA099)
  • The Sun retained the possibility of emitting light and warmth, Old Moon retained the power of reproduction. It was able to bring forth again the beings who had been on the Sun, but they had to be dependent on the Sun for light and warmth. Because the Old Moon itself possessed no light, the beings had to orientate themselves towards the Sun. All plants therefore completely reversed their position on the Old Moon. The animals turned half round and human beings also only turned halfway; but to compensate for this they received on the Moon the astral body (kama) and thereby developed warmth from within outwards. Kama was at that time still an essentially warming force, which is why human beings did not turn themselves completely towards the Sun. Life was in the darkness. (1905-10-25-GA093A)

Spiritual hierarchies

During this planetary stage of evolution (see Schema FMC00.077A as a reference):

• the Spirits of Motion (SoM), at CoC level 8, sacrificed their substance, and thereby the element-ether combination of water and chemical ether was added to the environment ... "it was the Spirits of Movement who made possible the formation of the astral body." (1909-06-09-GA109) ... they provided the substance for the angels to 'work' in and go through their human CoC=4 stage ..
• as a spin-off of the sacrifice by the SoM, the group souls for the animal kingdom was created
• the differentiation in Spirits of Form during their development on Old Moon is the underlying reason for two evolutionary types or currents in humanity with a different soul constitution, referred to as the streams of Abel and Cain (in terminology from a legend in the Old Testament)
• the angels went through the 'human' experiential stage at CoC=4 level (1911-06-07-GA015), thereby weaving the soul element or astral body onto Man's bodily structure. How this was done is sketched in 1907-06-03-GA099, see aspect 'animal-man and angels' below

Man itself - 'animal-man'

• the ancestor of earthly, physical man .. had a 'liquid animal'-like nature with a dream picture consciousness, like an 'animal-man' (1904-GA011) ... at a stage midway between the human being and animal, was endowed with a dreamlike, imaginative consciousness. Their 'body composition was like the nerve-substance of the crayfish. Living beings had no warm blood (passions were in the warmth which was in-breathed) (1906-06-11-GA094)
• was breathing warmth, was a fire-breather (1907-06-03-GA099, 1907-11-19-GA100, also see Schema FMC00.238)
  • man's inner warmth was not yet constant but he absorbed warmth from the warmth around him and emitted it again, just as he inhales and exhales air today. The process became visible in his organ of warmth which gleamed and was luminous when he was absorbing warmth and darkened when he was exhaling it. If you could have seen what was happening, the process would have suggested the image of a fire-breathing dragon. This ancient condition is reflected in archangel Michael (or St. George) fighting with the dragon (1909-06-09-GA109)
• animal-men moved as the present water animals move in water
• form: "The animal-man form was quite different from that of man today because the astral body did not sink into the physical body as deeply as it did later on the earth. Man is the figure he is today because the astral body eventually sank right down into him." (1909-06-09-GA109)
• Man was at the level of dream-sleep consciousness (CoC=3) or picture consciousness (1907-06-01-GA099)
  • Man perceived his own inner becoming in the form of pictures which spread out and filled cosmic space, but just represented the work of spiritual beings upon his human organs. There was no distinction between the outer and inner worlds: the outer world was fully working upon Man's inner being and was thus his inner world: what was inside of him was reflected in pictures outside. Hence it was normal for Man to be enveloped in the astral and feel his own development as an external world. (1910-08-23-GA122, see The eye is formed by the light for the light)
  • head and perception (1909-06-09-GA109)
    • certain members of their constitution were not yet actually within them ... the astral body then was never entirely within the physical and etheric bodies (but was nevertheless connected more fundamentally and definitely with the human being than is the case during sleep today) ... the astral body extended far beyond the physical and the etheric bodies; the form of the physical body alone could be called 'human'.
    • the head of the animal-man was still open, not self-enclosed as is the case today. A residue of what the organs in the head were at that time is the place at the top of a baby's head that stays soft and open for a long time. Drawing a vertical line downward from this soft area there is the pineal gland (stunted and withered today) which was an important sense organ that connected Man's physical and etheric bodies with his astral body and through which Man's astral body radiated into the other bodies.
    • consciousness was neither that of sleep nor of waking life, more like dreamline. He did not perceive outer objects. The pineal gland was a warmth organ emitting powerful luminous rays of warmth. When man was moving this organ showed the direction to take.
    • Man's perception consisted in something like a dream picture rising up within him, there was as yet no seeing or perceiving objects but man felt an inner up-and-down surge of living pictures of which the dream pictures of today are only a feeble shadow. Everything a man set out to do was always by these pictures that were connected with the outer world, he was directed and led by them eg when looking for food or when warned of danger.
• procreation happened during dream-filled sleep. Waking daytime life was free from desire and loveless (1903-GA089)
• addition of astral body (1907-03-04-GA096, 1907-06-03-GA099)
  • the part of the human being which today is outside the physical body during sleep was outside all the time, was connected with the general divine spirit of the world. The body of the human soul on Old Moon was all around the planet, like the air around us today.
  • the human I was in the atmosphere surrounding Old Moon (as part of the spiritual beings, it had not yet emancipated itself, fallen out from this divine spiritual essentiality; just as formerly the etheric body had been on Old Saturn and the astral body on the Old Sun), and from there this I worked into the three bodies from outside (just as these group-souls today work into the animals).
  • through the work of the astral body upon the physical body arose the beginnings of the nervous system (see aspect 'animal-man and angels' below)
• at the same time the development of Group souls of humanity took place
  • in our present Earth stage the folk soul is purely a spiritual being, perceptible only to one who can ascend to the astral plane .. however their origin lies on the Old Moon stage before the process of human individuation. On Old Moon it was this group soul which guided the bloodstream down into the bodies, into those beings which circled round the Old Moon. (see aspect 'animal-man and angels' below) Hence on Old Moon a more common consciousness prevailed than here on Earth ... the group-soul was active, which then appeared on the Earth in an attenuated form as folk soul; the whole Old Moon-globe had a common consciousness .. that felt itself as feminine. (1907-06-04-GA099)

• For illustrations, see also Schemas FMC00.147 and FMC00.149 on Man and nature's kingdoms in evolution.

animal-man and angels

• start of the blood system and earliest soul-like experiences
  • The smoke or steam like was interpenetrated, at certain times more, at others less, by currents which hung down from the air somewhat like cords, and sank into the human bodies and permeated them: the animal-man body on Old Moon hung on a kind of strand which extended into the atmosphere (as today the child in the maternal body hangs on the navel-cord). It was like a cosmic navel-cord, and out of the fire-mist substances entered the bodies - comparable to what man himself creates today with the blood. The 'I was outside man and sent through these cords into the bodies something similar to blood, and this substance streamed in and out of them. It was the work of the angels to let these blood-juices flow into the human beings, but these beings never came in contact with the Old Moon-surface but hovered and floated around it. (1907-06-03-GA099)
    • note the evolution of this navel chord: The spleen is the point where the physical body connects with the astral body. With clairvoyant cognition one can see this connection with the physical body during sleep through "an astral strand in the region of the spleen". (1907-03-04-GA096). See also Spiritual scientific physiology#spleen and 'silver chord' on Out of Body Experiences (OBE).
  • At a definite position of the Old Moon to the Sun, in a certain season, the Old Moon sounded forth into the cosmos. From the cosmos a substance resembling blood streamed in and out (just as now the air streams in and out of the body), and hence arose for the Old Moon animal-men a capacity which only appears with the blood: the first sounding of inner tones for experiences of the soul. Sensation only arises when beings posses an astral body, and these beings could express this sensation in tones in a remarkable way, not as formed sounds, but it occurred simultaneously with certain experiences. At definite seasons there took place on Old Moon what one could call a development of 'propagation impulses', and the inner experiences of the beings at those times could be expressed in sound; otherwise they were silent. The beings cried out their germinative power into the cosmos; the cry was more the precipitation of general processes, an expression of a cosmic event, not of individual experiences which are voluntarily expressed. (1907-06-03-GA099)

Cosmic evolution

• the contraction from the Old Sun sphere (reaching to the boundary of current Jupiter) to the Old Moon sphere (reaching to the boundary of current Mars) by the SoM caused the so called Fight or War in heaven between advanced and other SoM and gave rise to the Planetoid belt
• Christ went through the Luciferic temptation on Old Moon, and developed the macroscopic I between Old Sun and the current Earth stages.

Other

• The Baldur legend and mistletoe as a remnant of Old Moon (1908-06-22-GA104, see Ragnarok#Myth of Baldur .. also in 1907-06-03-GA099)
• Jehovah is called a Moon God (Helena Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine) (1905-10-02-GA093a)

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.182: shows the process of the development of group soul prototypes (above) and types of the kingdom of animal-man (below) after the split of Old Moon into two bodies.

On Old Moon the group soul was active and guided the bloodstream down into the bodies of animal-men (see Old Moon#animal-man and angels), on the Earth this then appeared in an attenuated form as folk souls. (1907-06-04-GA099). In the Lemurian epoch, spirits descended into the physical bodies on Earth as part of the process of individuation (for context, see Unification#Individuation and differentiation) and Development of the I.

Regarding the names of these archetypes: The outer astral forms of the spiritual beings working (as formative forces) from the Sun were to a certain extent the counterpart of animal forms here on the Earth, hence the names of e.g the ‘Bull-spirits’ (spiritual counterpart of animal species having the functions of nourishment and digestion as the essential characteristic of their development) or ‘Lion-spirits' (counterpart in the animal species in whom the organs pertaining to the heart and the circulation of the blood are preeminently developed). (1909-07-01-GA112)

Lecture coverage and references

1903-GA089 - Draft of a spiritual-scientific cosmology - Fragment from 1903/04

On Moon evolution

In the first Old Moon cycle it transferred this world of images to the ether body and this then configured the physical body according to those soul images. Whereas at the Old Sun level the ether body came between physical body and soul as a configurer, so the body of images I have characterized now found its place between ether body and soul. In occult science it is known as the sentient body. For as human inner sentience of the outside world flows inward, as it were, thus making the contents of the outside world something the inner world possessed, so did the images in the body of images act from the inside to the outside, impressing their contents on the ether body which in turn transferred them to the physical body.

During Old Moon evolution the human being again went seven times through all the form states, letting the soul mature to a higher level in each of them. During the seventh level the soul had the ability to give its images the more perfect form; it was able to enter into the living experience of everything that happened around it on the cosmic body, and its world of images thus reflected the whole Old Moon world. At the same time it anticipated experience of the highest level of consciousness which would come at the next level; it began to have vision of solid forms within its changing world of images. This made it ready to influence the ether body so that it was able to develop organs in itself that were of a more lasting nature

[Old Moon evolution]

When Old Sun had completed its seven cycles [CoL], a time came when the human body had developed so far that it was not only able to receive the incoming light into itself and be enlivened by it, but gained the ability to let the world of sound created from the Mights continue to influence it and also to reproduce it in sounds.

At this level of existence, which is called Old Moon evolution, the human body itself produced sounds. At the Old Saturn level, a sound reflected to the surrounding world by the planet was merely an echo of its surroundings; now the sound had changed as it went out into those surroundings. It had changed to such effect that it reflected in a wide variety of ways what was happening in human bodies. These human bodies had thus made the sentient body fully part of their essential nature as a third body. For it was their inner nature, their world of feelings, which was expressed in sound.

The seven spirits which had evolved out of the Old Saturn spirit during Old Sun evolution had now become seven times seven. The world surrounding them had become such that they had living experience of their own world of feeling in the sentient bodies which had developed. They then felt themselves surrounded by two worlds which were at a lower level and one which was above them.

• The world above them made itself felt as cosmic aroma coming from cosmic space;
• they experienced themselves as entities giving sound, and
• the two realms which were at a lower level had arisen because a region of human bodies had remained at the Old Saturn level and another at the Old Sun level.

These Old Moon spirits were thus surrounded by

• entities that were like automatons and were continuing their Old Saturn maturation on Old Moon under conditions which were very different from those which existed on Old Saturn,
• and also by plant-like Old Sun bodies which were in a similar position.

Three kinds of entities were thus present in the actual Old Moon mass.

• The entities which were like automatons, dark in themselves, had still retained the ability from Old Saturn to let life shine out around them. They were not lifeless the way today's minerals are. There was no mineral basis on Old Moon like the one we have on Earth. Instead there was a basis consisting of those entities. You can get an idea of them if you think of them endowed with a life that is present in every part of them, so that the mineral soil of our fields would have been a living, porridge-like mass on Moon; woody parts in this mass were like the rock masses found in softer mineral matter here on Earth.
• In this living basis, the parts of which may be called vegetable minerals, the Old Sun entities I have characterized who were at a level between present-day animals and present-day plants, had taken root.
• The freely moving entities dwelling on Old Moon were the human bodies, developmentally halfway between animal and human. They provided dwelling places for the scions of the planetary spirit of Old Saturn. This spirit would not have been able, however, to develop waking daytime consciousness in them.

[animal-man]

The entities always had to go out of the body to live in such a consciousness. When in the body and therefore sharing its life, they only had a consciousness filled with dream images. In this state of consciousness they would not see anything of their physical surroundings, but they let their inner experiences go out into the surrounding world in sound. The passions and desires of the Moon entities were then coming alive as sound during their sleep.

To consider just one example of this living experience, it should be noted that what we call our love life today, which is the basis of procreation, happened during dream-filled sleep on Old . Waking daytime life was free from desire and, it has to be said, also loveless, given wholly to vision of the surrounding world. The human ancestor on Old Moon knew nothing of sexual relationships as yet in his daytime life. The place of the feelings people have in sexual love today was taken by dream images which only showed today's factual reality in allegorical form.

On Old Moon, therefore, it was not the human ancestor who lived in the world of images when awake but the spirits who came immediately above human beings—the angels. The dream world of the human being was clear daytime reality to them, as it were. They watched over the dreaming human world just as the archangels had been watching over the Old Sun world when it was in plant-like sleep.

[CoL cycles]

The first two Moon cycles were recapitulations of the preceding states of evolution.

• The seven forms of the first [CoL] cycle recapitulated the seven Old Saturn cycles, and
• the seven forms of the second the seven Old Sun cycles.
• During the third Old Moon [CoL] cycle the human body had developed so far that the spirits which were at the archangel level were able to experience its dream images as their environment;
• in the fourth cycle this was then the case for the angels. The scions of the spirit of the planet Old Saturn were able to use the human body during this cycle to such a degree that enveloping it from outside they were able to use it to gain clear daytime consciousness.
• By the fifth cycle these spirits had risen to a level where they no longer had need of the physical human body; this then perceived its environs for itself but only reached a lower level of consciousness for these perceptions. Those spirits only had need of the ether body and the sentient body during this time.
• In the sixth cycle they also left the ether body to itself
• and in the seventh the sentient body.

[Second cycle - separation of Sun]

The Old Moon was a re-embodiment of the Old Sun planet. At the time when the stage of Old Sun evolution was recapitulated on Old Moon, that is, in the second cycle, the Sun body separated from the Old Moon mass. This separate Sun body was inhabited by the spirits which had assumed a level of consciousness and of life, the conditions for which could not be found on the Moon itself. During the second cycle these spirits were the Powers; they had shared the life of the physical human body during Sun life.

Now, on Moon, this Sun level had a limited, retarded existence in the above-mentioned animal-plants. The Powers could not live in them. Instead they gave those animal-plants life from outside by sending the light they needed to them from the Sun.

[Further cycles]

• During the third Old Moon cycle the scions of the spirit of the planet Saturn had also reached a level where they could no longer exist on Old Moon.
• The archangels therefore left the Moon in the fourth cycle, and in this space of time this was also the dwelling place of the angels, as the Earth was later to be in its fourth cycle for human beings.

The other planets had emerged step by step during Sun evolution and did the same now during Moon evolution. Only they were closer to physical existence by another level now, when the Moon was at the height of its evolution, that is from the physical form of its fourth cycle onwards.

• With the fifth cycle, Mars, then inhabited by the angels, reached a subtle, etheric and physical form;
• with the sixth cycle this happened for Jupiter, dwelling place of the archangels.
• Finally in the seventh Old Moon cycle the same also happened for Mercury.

Mars and Jupiter had grown even denser by then, the density of the former being such that it became possible to develop heat by moving its constituents and letting it flow out into cosmic space.

1904-GA011

Cosmic Memory gives a high level overview of the cycles of the Old Moon planetary stage

It is to be understood in this way if the Old Moon consciousness is now compared with one with which it has some similarity, namely with that of dream-filled sleep. Man attains the so-called image consciousness on the Old Moon. The Old Moon is that planet on which man develops the image consciousness with its symbolical character.

[CoL]

1&2 - During the first two cycles (rounds) the Moon development of man is prepared through a kind of repetition of the Old Saturn and Old Sun processes.

3 - In the third cycle the human astral body comes into being through an outpouring of the Spirits of Motion. Concurrently with this process the Moon splits off from the re-awakened unified Sun body and revolves around the rest of the Sun. The development of the beings connected with man now takes place on the Moon.

4 - In the fourth cycle the angels [Spirits of Twilight] inhabit the human physical body and thereby elevate themselves to the level of humanity. The developing astral body is inoculated with independence by the [archai] Spirits of Personality (Asuras).

5 - In the fifth cycle man begins to work in dullness on his physical body. Thereby the spirit-self (manas) joins the already existing monad.

In the ether body of man a kind of joy and pain develop during the Old Moon existence, which have a passive character. In the astral body on the other hand develop the emotions of rage, hate, the instincts, passions, and so forth.

The two former realms, the plant and the mineral realm, which are thrust down to a lower level, are now joined by the animal realm, in which man himself exists at this time.

Toward the end of the whole universal era the Old Moon approaches more and more closely to the Sun, and when the time of rest (Pralaya) begins, again the two have become united in a whole, which then passes through the stage of sleep in order to awaken in a new universal era, that of the earth.

quote B:

In order that the transformation of Man described here could occur during the Old Moon period, the assistance of a great universal event was needed. The integration of the astral body and the related development of a nervous system in the physical body was only made possible by the fact that what had previously been one body, split into two — into Sun and Old Moon. The former advanced to the state of a fixed star, the latter remained a planet — which the Sun also had been — and began to circle around the Sun, from which it had split off. Through this a significant transformation took place in everything which lived on Sun and Old Moon.

full coverage

In the Old Moon stage of evolution, which follows that of the Old Sun, man develops the third of his seven states of consciousness.

-         The first had developed during the seven Old Saturn cycles,

-         the second during the Old Sun development; ..

-         ..

-         .. the fourth is that which man is at present developing during the course of the earth;

-         three others will come into being on subsequent planets.

[Condition of consciousness]

The condition of consciousness of Old Saturn man cannot be compared with any state of consciousness of present-day man, for it was duller than that of dreamless sleep. The Old Sun consciousness, however, can be compared to this condition of dreamless sleep, or to the present consciousness of the sleeping plant world. But in all these instances one is dealing only with similarities. It would be quite erroneous to think that in the great universal eras anything repeats itself in a completely identical manner.

It is to be understood in this way if the Old Moon consciousness is now compared with one with which it has some similarity, namely with that of dream-filled sleep.

Man attains the so-called image consciousness on the Old Moon. The similarity consists in that in the Old Moon consciousness as well as in dream consciousness, images arise within a being which have a certain relation to objects and beings of the outside world.

But these images are not likenesses of these objects and beings as in present-day man when he is awake. The dream images are echoes of the experiences of the day, or symbolical expressions for events in the dreamer's environment, or for what is taking place in the interior of the dreaming person.

Examples of these three types of dream experiences are easy to give.

• First, everyone knows those dreams which are nothing but confused images of more or less remote daily experiences.
• An example of the second type would be if the dreamer thinks he perceives a passing train and then, upon awakening, realizes that it was the ticking of the watch lying beside him which was perceptible in this dream image.
• An example of the third kind is that it seems to someone that he is in a room where ugly animals are sitting on the ceiling, and upon awaking from this dream he realizes that it was his own headache which expressed itself in this way.

If one now wants to attain a conception of the Old Moon consciousness on the basis of such confused dream images, one must realize that while the image-like character is also present there, complete regularity instead of confusion and arbitrariness prevails. It is true that the images of the Old Moon consciousness have even less similarity than the dream images to the objects to which they are related, but on the other hand there is a complete correspondence of image and object.

[Inner life of Man's ancestor]

At present in the earth development, the conception is a likeness of its object; thus for instance the conception “table” is a likeness of the table itself. This is not the case with the Old Moon consciousness. Assume, for instance, that the Old Moon man approaches an object which to him is pleasing or advantageous. Then a colored image of a light tone arises in his soul; when something harmful or displeasing comes near him, he beholds an ugly, dark image. The conception is not a likeness. but a symbol of the object which corresponds to it in a quite definite and regular way. Hence the being which has such symbolical conceptions can direct its life in accordance with them.

The inner life of man's ancestor on the Old Moon thus took its course in images which have the character of the volatile, the floating and the symbolical in common with dreams of today, but are distinguished from these dreams by their completely regular character.

The basis for the development of this image consciousness in man's ancestors on the Old Moon was the formation of a third member in addition to the physical body and the ether body. This third member is called the astral body.

[Subcycles and repetitions]

This formation, however, only occurred in the third smaller Old Moon cycle — the so-called third Old Moon round.

-         1&2/ The first two revolutions of the Old Moon must be seen merely as a repetition of what took place on Old Saturn and on the Old Sun. But this repetition must not be imagined as a re-enactment of all the events which took place on Old Saturn and on the Old Sun. That which repeats itself, namely the development of a physical body and of an ether body, at the same time is subject to such a transformation that in the third Old Moon cycle these two members of the nature of man can be united with the astral body, a union which could not have taken place on the Old Sun

-         3/ In the third Old Moon period - actually the process already starts around the middle of the second - the Spirits of Motion pour the astral element out of their own nature into the human body.

-         4/ During the fourth cycle — from the middle of the third onward — the Spirits of Form shape this astral body in such a way that its form, its whole organization can develop inner processes. These processes have the character of what at present in animals and man is called instinct, desire — or the appetitive nature.

-         5/ From the middle of the fourth Old Moon cycle onward, the Spirits of Personality (Archai) begin with their principal task in the fifth Old Moon era: they inoculate the astral body with selfhood, as they have done in the preceding cosmic eras with respect to the physical and the ether body.

But in order for the physical and the ether body to be so far advanced that they can harbor an independent astral body, at the time indicated, that is, in the middle of the fourth Old Moon cycle, they must first be brought to this point by the shaping spirits in the successive stages of development.

This takes place in the following manner. The physical body is brought to the necessary maturity

• in the first course of the Old Moon (round) by the Spirits of Motion,
• in the second by those of Form,
• in the third by those of Personality (archai)
• in the fourth by the Spirits of Fire (archangels)
• and in the fifth by those of Twilight (angels).

To be exact, this labor of the Spirits of Twilight takes place from the middle of the fourth Old Moon cycle onward, so that at the same time that the Spirits of Personality are engaged on the astral body the same is the case with the Spirits of Twilight with respect to the physical body.

In regard to the ether body the following is the case. Its necessary qualities are implanted in it

• in the first course of the Old Moon by the Spirits of Wisdom,
• in the second by those of Motion,
• in the third by those of Form,
• in the fourth by those of Personality, and
• in the fifth by those of Fire (archangels)

To be exact, this activity of the Fire Spirits takes place concurrently with the labor of the Spirits of Personality on the astral body, that is, from the middle of the fourth course of the Old Moon, onward into the fifth.

If one considers the entire ancestor of man as he developed on the Old Moon at that time, there is this to be said:

Starting from the middle of the fourth Old Moon cycle, man consists of

• a physical body in which the Sons of Twilight (angels) perform their labor, of
• an ether body in which the Spirits of Fire (archangels) perform theirs, and finally of
• an astral body in which the Spirits of Personality (archai) perform theirs.

That the Spirits of Twilight work on the physical body of man in this period of development, means that they now rise to the level of humanity, as did the Spirits of Personality in the same cycle on Old Saturn and the Fire Spirits on the Old Sun.

One must imagine that the “sensory germs” of the physical body, which by that time have become further developed, can be used by the Spirits of Twilight from the middle of the fourth course of the Old Moon onward in order to perceive external objects and events on the Old Moon.

Only on the earth will man be so far advanced that, from the middle of the fourth cycle onward, he can make use of these senses.

Higher principles unconsciously: Manas

On the other hand, around the middle of the fifth course of the Old Moon, he reaches the point where he can be engaged unconsciously on the physical body. Through this activity in the dullness of his consciousness he creates for himself the first germinal predisposition to what is called “spirit self” (Manas). This “spirit self” attains its full unfolding in the course of the subsequent development of mankind. In its union with Atma, the “spirit-man,” and with Buddhi, the “life-spirit,” it is what later forms the higher, spiritual part of man.

• As on Old Saturn the Thrones or Spirits of Will permeated the “spirit-man” (Atma), and
• as on the Old Sun the Cherubim permeated the life-spirit (Buddhi) with wisdom, so
• now the Seraphim accomplish this for the “spirit-self” (Manas). They permeate it, and thereby implant in it a capacity which at later stages of development — on the earth — becomes that conceptualizing faculty of man by means of which, as a thinking being, he can enter into a relation with the world which surrounds him.

[CoL 6]

From the middle of the sixth course of the Old Moon onward, the “life-spirit” (Buddhi), from the middle of the seventh onward, the “spirit-man” (Atma) appear again, and these unite with the “spirit-self,” so that at the end of the whole Old Moon era the “higher man” has been prepared. Then, together with all else that has developed on the Old Moon, the latter sleeps through a period of rest (Pralaya), in order to continue the course of his development on the earth planet.

While from the middle of the fifth Old Moon cycle onward into the sixth, man is working on his physical body in dullness, the Spirits of Twilight (angels) are engaged on his ether body.

As has been shown, through their work on the physical body in the preceding epoch (round), they have now prepared themselves for relieving the Fire Spirits (archangels) in the ether body, who in turn take over from the Spirits of Personality the work on the astral body. At this time, these Spirits of Personality (archai) have ascended to higher spheres.

[What does a cell on the grid of the Schema mean?]

The work of the Spirits of Twilight (angels) on the ether body means that they connect their own states of consciousness with the images of the consciousness of the ether body. They thereby implant in these images the joy and the pain which are caused by things.

On the Old Sun the scene of their corresponding activity had still been the merely physical body. Hence joy and pain were there connected only with the functions of this body and with its conditions. Now this becomes different. Joy and pain now become attached to the symbols which arise in the ether body.

In the dim human consciousness the Spirits of Twilight (angels) thus experience a world of emotions. This is the same world of emotions which man will experience for himself in his earth consciousness.

[this description gives a good appreciation how much we owe to these hierarchies for everything in our current human experience]

At the same time, the Fire Spirits (archangels) are active in the astral body. They enable it to carry on an active perception and feeling of the environment. Joy and pain, such as have been produced in the ether body by the Spirits of Twilight in the manner just described, have an inactive (passive) character; they present themselves as inactive mirrorings of the outside world.

But what the Fire Spirits produce in the astral body are vivid emotions, love and hate, rage, fear, horror, stormy passions, instincts, impulses and so forth.

Because the Spirits of Personality (the Asuras) have previously inoculated this astral body with their nature, these emotions now appear with the character of selfhood, of separateness.

Structure of Animal-Man

One must now represent to oneself how at that time the ancestor of man is constituted on the Old Moon.

• He has a physical body through which in dullness he develops a “spirit self” (Manas).
• He has an ether body, through which the Twilight Spirits feel joy and pain;
• and finally he possesses an astral body which, through the Fire Spirits, is moved by impulses, emotions, and passions.

But these three members of the Old Moon man still completely lack the object consciousness.

In the astral body images flow and ebb, and in these there glow the emotions named above.

When the thinking object consciousness will make its appearance on the earth, this astral body will be the subordinate carrier or the instrument of conceptual thinking.

Now however, it unfolds in its own entire independence on the Old Moon. In itself it is more active here, more agitated than later on the earth. If one wishes to characterize it, one can say that it is an animal man. As such, it is on a higher level than the present-day animals of earth. It possesses the qualities of animality in a more complete way. In a certain respect these are more savage and unbridled than present-day animal qualities. Therefore, at this stage of his existence, one can call man a being which in its development stands midway between present-day animals and man. If man had continued to advance in a straight line along this path of development, he would have become a wild, unrestrained being. The development of earth represents a toning down, a taming of the animal character in man. This is caused by the thinking consciousness.

If, as he had developed on the Old Sun, man was called plant man, the man of the Old Moon can be called animal man. That the latter can develop presupposes that the environment also changes. It has been shown that the plant-man of the Old Sun could only develop because an independent mineral realm was established alongside the realm of this plant man.

[Epochs/rounds and kingdoms]

During the first two Old Moon eras (rounds) these two earlier realms, plant realm and mineral realm, again emerge from the darkness. They are changed only in that they both have become somewhat coarser and denser.

During the third Old Moon era a part of the plant realm splits off. It does not take part in the transition to coarseness. It thereby provides the substance out of which the animal nature of man can be formed. It is this animal nature which, in its union with the more highly formed ether body and with the newly developed astral body, produces the threefold nature of man which we have described above.

The entire plant world which had been formed on the Old Sun could not develop into animality. For animals require the plant for their existence. A plant world is the basis of an animal world. As the Old Sun man could only elevate himself into a plant by thrusting a portion of his companions down into a coarser mineral realm, so this is now the case with the animal man of the Old Moon. A portion of the beings which on the Old Sun still had the same plant nature as himself, he leaves behind him on the level of coarser plantlike-ness.

As the animal man of the Old Moon is not like the animals of today, but rather stands midway between present animal and present man, so too the mineral of the Old Moon lies between the mineral of today and the plant of today. The mineral of the Old Moon is something plantlike. The Old Moon rocks are not stones in the sense of today; they have an animated, sprouting, growing character.

Similarly, the Old Moon plant has a certain character of animality.

[Structure of Animal-Man continued]

The animal man of the Old Moon does not yet have firm bones. His skeleton is still cartilaginous. His whole nature is soft, compared to that of today.

[cartilaginous: having a skeleton composed either entirely or mainly of cartilage, as vertebrates of the class Chondrichthyes, which includes the sharks, rays, and skates.

cartilage: a firm, elastic, flexible type of connective tissue of a translucent whitish or yellowish color; gristle.]

Hence his mobility too is different. His locomotion is not a walking, but rather a leaping, even a floating.

This could be the case because the Old Moon of that time did not have a thin, airy atmosphere like that of present-day earth, but its envelope was considerably thicker, even denser than the water of today. He moved forward and backward, up and down in this viscous element.

In this element also lived the minerals and animals from which he absorbed his nourishment. In this element was even contained the power which later on the earth was wholly transferred to the beings themselves — the power of fertilization. At that time man was not yet developed in the form of two sexes, but only in one.

He was made out of his water air. But as everything in the world exists in transitional stages, in the last Old Moon periods, two-sexedness was already developing in a few animal man beings as a preparation for the later condition of the earth.

The sixth and seventh Old Moon cycles represent a kind of ebbing of all the processes we have described, but also the development of a kind of over-ripe condition, until the whole enters the period of rest (Pralaya) in order to pass in sleep into the existence of earth.

[Cosmic process]

The development of the human astral body is connected with a certain cosmic process which must also be described here. When, after the period of rest which succeeds the cosmic era of the Old Sun, the latter again awakes and emerges from the darkness, then everything which lives on the thus developing planet still inhabits it as a whole.

But this re-awakening Old Sun is nevertheless different from what it was before. Its substance is no longer luminous through and through, as it was previously; rather it now has darker portions. These separate out of the homogeneous mass, as it were.

From the second cycle (round) onward, these portions appear more and more as an independent member; the Sun body thereby becomes biscuit-like. It consists of two parts, a considerably larger and a smaller one, which however are still attached to one another by a connecting link.

In the third cycle these two bodies become completely separated. Sun and Old Moon are now two bodies, and the latter moves around the former in a circular orbit. Together with the Old Moon, all of the beings whose development has been described here, leave the Sun.

The development of the astral body alone takes place on the split-off Old Moon. The cosmic process which we have characterized is the precondition of the further development described above. As long as the beings belonging to man absorbed their forces from their own solar habitat, their development could not attain the stage we have described.

In the fourth cycle (round) the Old Moon is an independent planet, and what has been described concerning that period takes place on this Old Moon planet.

[Summary, incl timing separation Sun and Old Moon]

Here again, we shall present the development of the Old Moon planet and of its beings in a clearly summarized form.

1. The Old Moon is that planet on which man develops the image consciousness with its symbolical character.
2. During the first two cycles (rounds) the Old Moon development of man is prepared through a kind of repetition of the Old Saturn and Old Sun processes.
3. In the third cycle the human astral body comes into being through an outpouring of the Spirits of Motion.
4. Concurrently with this process the Old Moon splits off from the re-awakened unified Sun body and revolves around the rest of the Sun. The development of the beings connected with man now takes place on the Old Moon.
5. In the fourth cycle the angels inhabit the human physical body and thereby elevate themselves to the level of humanity.
6. The developing astral body is inoculated with independence by the archai.
7. In the fifth cycle man begins to work in dullness on his physical body. Thereby the “spirit self” (Manas) joins the already existing monad.
8. In the ether body of man a kind of joy and pain develop during the Old Moon existence, which have a passive character. In the astral body on the other hand develop the emotions of rage, hate, the instincts, passions, and so forth.
9. The two former realms, the plant and the mineral realm, which are thrust down to a lower level, are now joined by the animal realm, in which man himself exists at this time.

[Reunion of Old Old Moon and Sun before Pralaya]

Toward the end of the whole universal era the Old Moon approaches more and more closely to the Sun, and when the time of rest (Pralaya) begins, again the two have become united in a whole, which then passes through the stage of sleep in order to awaken in a new universal era, that of the earth

1905-10-02-GA093a

covers:

• Development of the beings on the Old Moon. Moon — Cosmos of Wisdom.
• Jehovah a rank of the hierarchies.
• Transition from the Old Moon to the Earth.

Helena Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine, called Jehovah a Moon God. There is a deep reason underlying this. In order to understand it we must be clear about the further development of man. In man as he is today, his higher forces are intermingled. His further development depends on the emergence of his higher self from the sheath of the lower forces and organs.

The brain is divided into three actual parts: into thinking, feeling and willing sections. Later these three parts, like the three divisions of an ant-heap, will be directed by man from outside. The parts, however, from which the higher has been withdrawn do not remain as they are today, but they then descend a further stage lower.

This is the reason why many people practicing a one-sided spiritual development suffer a moral decline. In the case of western cultural life there is less danger of this, for western science does not yet compel the higher things of the mind to rise up out of the lower body. Through theosophy, on the other hand, man actually absorbs a wisdom through which the I is partially torn out of the usual environment of the organs. It can happen that when a person who, through his conventional milieu had observed ordinary moral standards, takes up theosophical teachings, his worser qualities, which up to that time had remained hidden, actually make their appearance. Frequently the lower comes to the surface because one occupies oneself with spiritual things without at the same time strengthening one's morality. This fact brings with it a certain tragedy. Certain men of academic standing, who in the sphere of western knowledge had been quite admirable people, suffered through having come into the Theosophical Society; in their case the lower nature made its appearance without being mastered by the higher.

The same law is also to be found on a larger scale.

The beings whom we meet with on the Old Moon had not as yet incorporated their power of thinking in a physical brain. The power of thinking in the case of the Moon-Nirmana-kayas, Bodhisattvas, pitris and pure human beings did not yet work in a physical brain but in the ether masses surrounding them.

On the Old Moon the environment consisted not only of air, but also of ether filled with wisdom. On the Old Moon thoughts were not in the individual beings but they flew hither and thither in the ether. In occultism therefore the Old Moon is also called the Cosmos of Wisdom.

The Old Moon was surrounded by Warmth Ether and other forms of ether. In these ethers lived intelligence and reason, as they now live in the human brain.

Underlying this however there was development. At the beginning of the Moon evolution wisdom still impressed itself into beautiful forms. The beings who only possessed the lower human members, physical body, etheric body and astral body, were directed by these streams of wisdom. In the course of further development the three lower bodies descended more deeply.

When the Old Moon evolution came to an end the beings who were wise, but did not possess wisdom in a brain, had progressed so far that they could completely relinquish these lower bodies. These beings who had now become pitris and who no longer needed to enter into such physical, etheric and astral bodies, were the hosts of the Elohim in different stages. The lowest rank of these Elohim is the Jehovah stage. Jehovah therefore is an actual Moon divinity, who on the Old Moon passed through physical development. Nevertheless on the Moon he was never able to work on the physical surroundings, using a brain as the vehicle of thought. Only his physical, etheric and astral bodies had worked on the physical environment. This however he did through pictures. Thinking hovered above. The name Jehovah does not designate a single being, but a rank in the order of the hierarchies. Many beings can take on the Jehovah rank, or assume it for a purpose. Eliphas Levi repeatedly emphasised that with the designations Jehovah, archangeloi, angeloi, we have to do with ordered ranks of beings.

The first human beings to receive teaching on the Earth received it from Jehovah in pictures. That is why Genesis is a sum of great pictures, pictures which Jehovah had experienced on the Old Moon.

While on the Old Moon, on the one hand, only the lower being of Man was developed in physical, etheric and astral bodies—on the other hand the higher triad was being cherished and fostered. These principles had reached a certain degree of maturity, after having been implanted; atma on Old Saturn, buddhi on Old Sun, manas on Old Moon. They could then develop further on the Earth.

What came over on to the Earth from the Old Moon as physical, etheric and astral bodies, are the grotesque animals in which atma, buddhi and manas gradually incorporated themselves. The Old Moon pitris had left aside the lower parts, but to make up for this they had cherished and fostered atma, buddhi and manas in an objective way. Through their fostering care they brought it about that a thinker could develop on the Earth.

If one looks at the external creatures on the Old Moon, these are the sheaths which surrounded man, not man himself. The sheaths could be made use of because what had to leave them had departed. [Gap in the text ...] Now the remaining material could be condensed to form the brain. In a germinal condition the matter for the brain was there, but could only condense after the pitris had left.

What took place in the pre-Lemurian periods is a preparation. The human body is so worked upon that atma, buddhi and manas can sink into it. These principles enveloped themselves with Kama-substance.

Let us now imagine a jelly-like being which had freed itself from what had come over from the Old Moon. This provides a physical foundation. In addition to this there are atma, buddhi and manas, and an astral body which these principles organise around themselves. They work on the jelly-like masses from outside until they are able to take possession of them from within.

Finally the spiritual penetrates the physical. Now two kinds of beings have amalgamated. The moment the brain is formed they interpenetrate one another. Through this, birth and death entered into Earth-evolution.

Previously human beings had themselves built up the physical body; in the future this will be so again. But because two beings are united who are only partially suited to one another we have birth and death, and every period of time between birth and death is a continual attempt to make these two beings fit together better—a swinging to and fro of the pendulum until eventually a rhythmical condition is brought about.

1905-10-09-GA93A

Today we are surrounded by physical reality, by sun, moon and stars.

What man had around him in the Old Moon existence, he has today within himself.

The forces of Moon now live within him. Had man not existed on the Old Moon he would not have possessed these forces.

This is why the Egyptian occult teaching in esoteric centres called the Moon Isis, the Goddess of fertility. Isis is the soul of the Old Moon precursor of the Earth.

Then all the forces lived in the environment which now live in plants and animals for the purpose of reproduction.

As now fire, chemical ether, magnetism and so on are around us and surround the Earth, so Old Moon was surrounded by those forces which enabled Man, animal and plant to propagate.

The forces which at present surround the Earth will in the future play an individualised role in Man.

What now constitutes the relationship between man and woman was on the Old Moon external physical activity, such as volcanic eruptions are today.

These forces surrounded Man during the Old Moon existence and he drew them in through his Old Moon-senses, in order to evolve them now. What Man developed on the Old Moon through involution emerged on Earth as evolution.

What Man developed after the Lemurian Age as the sexual forces, is due to Isis, the soul of the Moon, which now lives on further in Man. Here we have the relationship between the human being and the present moon.

The Moon has left its soul with Man and has therefore become a mere slagheap.

[editor: slag heap: an accumulation of waste and debris]

1905-10-25-GA093A

It was only in the Fourth Round that the actual Earth existence emerged and then man had reached a somewhat higher stage than on the Old Moon. There he had not yet reached separate development, he had not yet become sufficiently purified to receive the Monad. On the Moon the astral body was still wild and passionate.

...

The last human beings during the Old Moon existence are our physical forefathers. On the Earth they now developed somewhat further. The Earth-men of the pre-Lemurian Age are the actual descendants of the inhabitants of the Moon. This is why we call the inhabitants of the Moon the Fathers or Pitris of Earth-Men.

...

Then, with the third incarnation of the Earth he became a Moon-man. He bent over, the vertical becoming the horizontal (animal). The tendency towards a spine developed. The symbol for this is the Tau = T. On the Earth he turns completely round. For this the symbol is the Cross. The symbolism of the Cross depicts the development from the Sun, through the Moon to the Earth. On the Earth the symbol of the Cross was attained by the addition of the upper vertical member above the T. This developed further in the bearing of the Cross on the shoulders.

...

Then, in the next manvantara - Old Moon - the following took place: out of the darkness of pralaya the Sun emerged. A part of the Sun substance had the urge to detach itself. At first a kind of biscuit formation developed.

[drawing]

Then the one part severed itself completely and the two bodies continued side by side as Sun and Old Moon. The Sun retained the possibility of emitting light and warmth. The Old Moon retained the power of reproduction. It was able to bring forth again the beings who had been on the Sun, but they had to be dependent on the Sun for light and warmth. Because the Old Moon itself possessed no light, the beings had to orientate themselves towards the Sun. All plants therefore completely reversed their position on the Old Moon. The animals turned half round and human beings also only turned halfway; but to compensate for this they received on the Moon the astral body, Kama, and thereby, developed warmth from within outwards.

The kama was at that time still an essentially warming force. This is why the human beings did not already then turn themselves completely towards the Sun. Life was in the darkness.

The Old Moon also circled round the Sun, but not as our Earth does today. The Moon rotated around the Sun, in such a way that only one side was turned towards it. A Moon-day therefore lasted as long as a half year does today. Thus on the one side there was an intense heat and on the other side an intense cold.

On the Old Moon the predecessors of man again went through a certain normal development. But there were also Moon Adepts who hastened on in advance of the rest of mankind. At the end of the Old Moon evolution these Pitri beings were much more advanced than the rest of humanity, just as the Adepts are today.

[continues with Jehovah and moon adepts]

1906-06-11-GA094

The Earth is a reincarnation of an earlier planet — of the Old Moon.

In this Old Moon stage of evolution, the pure mineral did not yet exist. The planetary body was composed of a substance somewhat akin to the nature of wood a substance midway between the mineral and the plant. Its surface was not hard like the mineral — indeed it was liken to turf.

It brought forth beings by nature half-plant, half-mollusc, and was inhabited by a third kingdom of beings at a stage of existence midway between the human being and animal. These beings were endowed with a dreamlike, imaginative consciousness. We can envisage the kind of matter of which their ‘bodies’ were composed, by thinking of the nerve-substance of the crayfish. This matter densified to become the substance of which the brain is now composed.

On Old Moon, this matter remained in a more fluid state but on Earth it required a protective sheath of bone — the skull. In this sense, all the substances of which we are composed are ‘extracts’ of the macrocosm. All this preparatory activity in the universe was necessary in order that the I might descend into Man.

The atmosphere of Old Moon .. contained nitrogen, just as today the atmosphere of the Earth contains oxygen, and it was the predominance of nitrogen which brought about the end of the Old Moon period and the onset of a cosmic night. The cyanides on Earth are survivals from the conditions existing at the final stages of the Old Moon evolutionary stage. That is why they have a destructive effect on Earth, for the Earth is not their proper sphere. They are the poisonous remains of life in another age.

Animal-man, as he lived on Old Moon, is the ancestor of earthly, physical man; the Spirit within man is the offspring of the Spirits of Fire in the Old Moon stage. The Beings who on the Old Moon were incarnate in the fire, incarnated, on Earth, in the air. But now, has anything of the action of these Spirits of Fire remained in man? On the Old Moon, living beings had no warm blood. What was it that gave rise to the warmth of the blood and, as a consequence, to the life of passions? — The fire which was inbreathed by the beings of the Old Moon and which lives again on Earth in their blood. And the Spirit of the air surrounds the body which contains the heritage of the Old Moon evolution, namely, the warmth of the blood, the brain, the spinal fluid, the nerves.

These examples serve to show that a close study of the transformation of substances is required before we can begin to understand the great processes of metamorphosis which took place during the earlier periods of the Earth's evolution. At a stage still earlier than that of the Old Moon, the planetary sphere which has now become our Earth had a body composed merely of gaseous substance; before that again, we can only speak of a body of sound. It is in this sound — the Cosmic Word — that man's evolution has its origin, proceeding thence towards light, fire, air. Only in the fourth condition does consciousness flash up in the Spirit of man. From this point onwards, the directing force bestowed by the Logos has its rise from within man's own being and his conscience becomes his rightful guide. His primordial being comes to expression in the ‘I,’ the Ego. The conscious Ego is the realisation in man of the Christ Principle.

1907-03-04-GA096

Basing ourselves on the science of the spirit, we can say that our earth has evolved from a planet that preceded it, though this was a vast number of years ago, and, as we have said several times before, this planet is called ‘Old Moon’ by occultists. It should not, of course, in any way be confused with our present-day moon. Today’s moon, a satellite of our earth, is a kind of cinder that has been cast off as being of no further use. You could see the predecessor of our earth develop if you were able to stir together everything our present-day earth and moon are today and everything of soul and spiritual quality they contain. This would give you a planet that would more or less be the predecessor of our earth, the Moon.

On that Old Moon, from which our earth has gradually evolved, the physical human beings did not yet have their present form. A kind of physical predecessor lived on the Old Moon, but this predecessor still had very much an animal nature. You should not think that today’s human being was present in the animal-human being on Moon. On Old Moon, creatures walked about that had animal and human nature, higher than today’s mammals but lower than today’s human beings. The soul human beings have in them today was not yet present in the Old Moon human being. At that time it enveloped human beings, just as they have an invisible aura around them today.

[spleen]

I have said on several occasions that the human astral body leaves the physical body at night.

In sleep, it is merely connected with the physical body by an astral strand in the region of the spleen that can be perceived by a clairvoyant. The spleen does not only have a physical function; it also serves to provide the connection between man’s physical part and his spirit and soul. The spleen is the point where the physical body connects with the astral body. It is because of this that you’ll read in any anatomy book that nothing much is really known about the spleen. It is one of the organs that are on the borderline of being physical organs. The astral body, which in sleep is thus only connected with the physical body through the spleen, works to rid the body of matter created by tiredness. To the clairvoyant, the sleeping human appears to be enveloped in a strange cloud that is continually working on the physical body.

[soul]

In the earth’s Old Moon stage, the part of the human being which today is outside the physical body during sleep was outside all the time. It was connected with the general divine spirit of the world. Part of the spirituality enveloping the Old Moon only separated off for human beings during earth stage. Occultists may indeed say that human beings had a predecessor who was animal-like in spirit. But if you were to take materialistic thinking to be the only kind that has validity, the present-day human being would never have evolved from this predecessor. The principle which had been working on human beings from outside had to enter into them and develop in order to achieve the later stages. The ensoulment spoken of in the paradise myth did therefore truly take place on earth. This paradise myth is something you may take literally in the widest sense. The air which surrounds us today was the true body of the human soul on the Old Moon. At that time the air was still wholly filled with spirit. Just as today’s earth is surrounded by physical air, so Old Moon was enveloped in something that was full of soul substance. Now you’ll understand why the air has grown soulless and physical. The soul entered into the body: ‘And God breathed into their nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.’ This paradise myth contains the most profound wisdom.

On Old Moon, a physical body in the cosmos, the human being was therefore still much less perfect as a physical entity, and everything else therefore had not reached the level it has today.

This Old Moon body is something I have also described to you several times before. Let us recall what it may have looked like. Rocks, soil, the kind of solid ground on which we walk about today did not exist on Old Moon. The Old Moon as a cosmic body was a kind of half living creature. Imagine a peat bog, though with more life in it than today’s peat—a vegetable mush, if you like, like spinach perhaps. This mushy substance contained woody material. Instead of the rocks we have today, there was a kind of woody foundation on Old Moon, and above this a mass that was half plant, half stone. Life-forms grew on this that were halfway between plants and animals—plant-animals we might say. Today’s parasitic plants are descendants of the plants that lived on the Moon, above all mistletoe. This can only grow on other plants because it is a relic, a plant that grew on a vegetable base on the Moon. This is why mistletoe plays such a role in popular tales.

Human beings were at a higher level of development than those life forms that were half plant, half animal. If the Old Moon had stayed the way it then was, if it had retained all those things, human souls could never have managed to develop Old Moon's animal-human being further, to become today’s human soul. The whole substance of the OId Moon was not of a kind that would allow human beings to be taken further in their development. For this to happen, it was first of all necessary to cast out the material that is in our present-day moon. This alone made it possible to develop the animal-human being to the human being of today, using the earth’s material. We thus have a predecessor of our earth which we call ‘planet Moon’. In it, our present-day earth was united with the present-day moon, which was merely discarded in order to obtain the purified substance that would make it possible to develop human beings in their present form.

1907-06-01-GA099

extract on State of consciousness (lecture in full in this doc)

The third condition, which is still dim and dull in relation to our day-consciousness, is that of “picture-consciousness”, and of this we have a clear idea since we experience an echo of it in our dream-filled sleep, though it is but a reminiscence of what on the Moon was the consciousness of all human beings. It will be well to start from the dream in order to get a picture of the Moon-consciousness.

...

The dream of the present-day man symbolises events which are both external and within.

But it was not so when this third state of consciousness was that of the Moon humanity. At that time man lived entirely in such pictures as he has in the modern dream, but they expressed realities.

They signified precisely such a reality as today the blue colour signifies a reality, only at that time colour hovered freely in space, it was not resting upon the objects. In that former consciousness man could not have set out on the street, as today, have seen a man in the distance, looked at him, approached him; for forms of beings with a coloured surface could not have been perceived at that time by man, quite apart from the fact that he could not then walk as he does today.

But let us suppose that one man on the Moon had met another, then a freely hovering picture of form and colour would have risen up before him. Let us say, an ugly one, then the man would have turned aside in order not to meet it; or a beautiful one, then he would have drawn near it. The ugly colour-picture would have shown him that the other had an unsympathetic feeling towards him, the beautiful, that the other liked him.

Let us suppose there had been salt on Old Moon; when salt stands on the table today, you see it as it is in space, as object, granular, with definite colouring. At that time it would not have been so. On Old Moon you would not have been able to see the salt. But from the place where the salt would be, a picture of colour and form would have proceeded, floating free; and this picture would have shown you that the salt was something useful.

Thus the whole consciousness was filled with pictures, with floating colours and forms. In an ocean of such form and colour pictures the human being lived; but the pictures of colour and form denoted what was going on around him, above all, things of a soul character and those which affected the soul nature — what was advantageous to it or harmful. In this way the human being orientated himself rightly with regard to the things around him.

When the Old Moon passed over into the Earth incarnation this consciousness changed into our day-consciousness, and only a relic of it has remained in the dream as one has it now — a rudiment, as there are rudiments of other things. You know, for instance, that there are certain muscles near the ear which nowadays seem purposeless. Earlier they had their significance; they served to move the ears at will; there are very few persons who can do this today.

So conditions are to be found in man which have remained as a last relic of a former significance. Although these pictures no longer have a meaning, at that time they signified the outer world. Even today you still have this consciousness among all those animals — note this carefully — which cannot utter sounds from their inner being. There is in fact a far truer division of animals in occultism than in external Nature Science, namely in to those which can utter sounds from within and those which are dumb. It is true that you can find among certain lower creatures the power of producing sounds, but then this happens in a mechanical way, through friction, etc., not from their inner being. Even the frogs do not create sounds so. Only the higher animals, which arose at the time when the human being could express his suffering and joy in tones, only these, together with man, have gained the power of bringing to expression their pain and pleasure through sounds and cries. All animals which do not utter sounds from within still have such a picture-consciousness. It is not a fact that lower animals see the pictures in such outlines as we do. If some lower animal, the crab, for example, perceives a picture that makes a distinctly unpleasant impression, it gets out of the way, it does not see the objects, but sees the harmfulness in a repelling picture.

1907-06-03-GA099

[pralaya]

We will now imagine that Old Sun has passed through such a condition and that from the Sun there has developed the third stage of our Earth, called in occultism Old Moon. If we had been able to observe this process, we should have been shown somewhat as follows: We should have seen in the course of millions of years Old Sun existence change and disappear, and after further millions of years light up again after a twilight state. That is the beginning of the Old Moon stage.

[recapitulation - Sun as fixed star]

When the Old Sun first lit up again there was no question of a division between Sun and Moon, they were still together as in the Old Sun period. And next there came about what one calls a recapitulation of the earlier conditions; what had taken place on Old Saturn and the Old Sun was recapitulated at a certain higher stage. Then a remarkable alteration took place in the condition of this newly emerged Sun. The Old Moon gathered itself into a globular mass apart from the Sun; two planets, or rather a fixed star and a planet arose from the old Sun system, a larger and a smaller body were formed: Sun' and Old Moon'.

The Old Moon of which we now speak contained not only what the present moon contains, but rather all the various substances and beings contained in the present earth and moon. If you were to stir all this together you would have that Moon of which we are speaking and which at that time had separated itself from the Sun.

The Sun became a fixed Star by reason of taking out the best substances together with the spiritual beings. As long as it was a planetary Sun it still contained all of this within itself. But since it now gave up to an independent planet everything that had hindered the beings in their higher development it became a fixed star. And now we have the cosmic scene before us of a higher evolved body as fixed star and moving round this in space a planet that is of lesser worth-the Old Moon-containing in itself the present moon and present earth.

This movement of the Moon round the Sun was quite different from the movement of our present earth. If you examine this you can distinguish two movements. First, the earth revolves round the Sun, and secondly round itself. Through the latter movement which takes place approximately 365 times in a year, arises, as you know, day and night, and through the former arise the four seasons. This, however, was not the case on the Old Moon. That Moon was in a certain respect a more polite body to its Sun than our earth is, for it always moved round the Sun in such a way as to show it the same side, it never turned its back upon it. While it passed once round the Sun it turned only once round itself Such a different kind of movement, however, had a great effect on the beings who were evolving on the planet.

[planet]

Now I will describe to you the Old Moon planet itself. Here I must say, first of all, that the human being was again a little more advanced than on Old Sun or Old Saturn. He had come so far as to consist not only of physical body and etheric body, but there was now the astral body in addition. We therefore now have a human being formed of physical body, etheric body, and astral body, but as yet no I. The consequence was that the Old Moon human beings progressed to the third state of consciousness we have described, the picture consciousness, the last relic of which we have in the dream-picture-consciousness of man today. By virtue of the incorporation of the astral body into the other bodies, changes took place in these, and especially in the physical body. We have seen that on Old Sun the glandular organs were the most highly developed part of the physical body, and that certain places were interpenetrated by currents which later hardened to the present solar-plexus. Through the work of the astral body upon the physical body on Old Moon arose the first beginnings of the nervous system; the nerves attached themselves in a way similar to what you have today in the nerves of the spine.

Now consider one thing; man had as yet no independent I, only the three other bodies were independent. This human I was in the atmosphere surrounding Old Moon, just as formerly the etheric body had been on Old Saturn and the astral body on the Old Sun, and from there this I, embedded in its divine origin, worked upon the physical body. If we remember that at that time the I still worked as a companion of divine beings, that it had not yet emancipated itself, fallen out from this divine spiritual essentiality, then we see that the I in its path to earth has undergone in a certain way a kind of deterioration and in a certain way also an advance. An advance inasmuch as the I has become independent, a deterioration, however, since it has now become exposed to all doubt, errors, wickedness and evil.

The I worked from the divine-spiritual substance. If an I works down today from the astral plane on to the physical body, it is a group-soul of the animals. The I worked at that time into the three bodies from outside as these group-souls today work into the animals. It could, however, create higher bodies than those of the present animal kingdom since it worked from the divine substance.

[kingdoms]

There were living beings on Old Moon which in appearance and in their whole nature stood higher than the highest apes today, but not so high as the present man. There was an intermediate kingdom between present man and the animal kingdom.

Then there were two more kingdoms, both of which had remained behind.

One of these had not been capable of taking up the astral body after the Old Sun existence and had therefore remained at the stage in which the glandular organs were on Old Sun. This second kingdom of Old Moon stood between the present animals and the present plants; it was a kind of plant-animal. There exists today on earth no directly similar creature, we can only recognise rudiments of it.

There was still a third kingdom, which had preserved the Old Saturn condition, even on the Old Sun; it stood between mineral and plant. Thus on the Old Moon we have three kingdoms: plant-mineral, animal-plant and man-animal.

The minerals of today on which we walk about did not exist on Old Moon; there were not as yet what we call rocks, arable land, humus. The lowest kingdom stood between plant and mineral. The whole substance of Old Moon consisted of this kingdom. The Old Moon surface somewhat resembled a peaty soil, on which there were also plants forming a kind of pulpy plant-mass. The Old Moon-beings went about on a vegetable-mineral mass of a pulp-like consistency. This was the state on the Old Moon during certain periods of its development-one could also compare it with a boiled lettuce. There were no rocks in the present sense, the nearest approach were certain formations occurring here and there which you can compare with the growths formed by the wood or the bark of certain trees.

The Old Moon-mountains consisted of such lignification, such wooden masses of lignified plant-pulp. It was like a kind of aged plant grown dry. This was the earliest beginnings of the mineral kingdom and upon it flourished those plant-animals; they could make no independent movements, they were fixed to the ground, as the corals are today.

[Baldur legend]

In our myths and sagas, in which lies deep wisdom given by initiates, a memory is preserved of this, and above all in the legend of the death of Baldur.

The Germanic Sun-god or god of Light had once a dream in which his approaching death was foretold to him. That made the gods, the Asen, who loved him, very sad; they pondered over means of saving him. The Mother of the gods, Frigga, put all the beings of the earth on solemn oath that not one of them would ever kill Baldur; they all swore and so it seemed impossible that Baldur should ever fall a victim to death. On one occasion the gods were at play, and during the game they threw every possible sort of thing at Baldur without hurting him, they knew that he was invulnerable. Loki, the god of darkness, the opponent of the Asen, cogitated, however, on how to kill Baldur. Then he heard from Frigga that she had made all beings swear not to kill him. Quite outside, however, there was a plant, the mistletoe, which was unaffected, this she disclosed to him; she had administered no oath to it. The crafty Loki took the mistletoe, brought it to the blind god, Hödur, and he, not knowing what he did, killed Baldur with it. So the evil dream was fulfilled through the mistletoe. It has always played a special role in popular custom, something sinister, ghostly, was expressed through it. What was taught about the mistletoe in the old Trotten and Druid Mysteries passed over to the populace as legend and custom.

These are the facts: On the Old Moon there was this mineral-plant pulp and upon it flourished the plant-animals of the Moon. Now there were some who evolved further and reached a higher condition on the Earth; others, however, had stayed behind at the Moon stage, and as the Earth arose could only assume a stunted form, they had to preserve the habits they had on the Old Moon. On Earth they could only live as spongers, parasites, on a plant-like foundation. So the mistletoe lives on other trees, since it is a relic left behind of the old plant-animals of the Old Moon.

• Baldur was the expression of what evolves further, of what brings light to the Earth;
• Loki, on the contrary, the representative of the dark forces, the backward forces, hates what has progressed, has gone on developing; therefore Loki is the opponent of Baldur.

None of the creatures of Earth could undertake anything against Baldur, the god who gave light to the Earth, for they were his equals, they had undergone evolution. Only a being still at the Old Moon-stage and feeling itself united with the ancient god of darkness was capable of killing the god of light. The mistletoe is also a definite curative remedy, as are poisons in general. Thus do we find deep facts of cosmic wisdom in the old folklore and customs.

[angels]

Now we call to mind the beings on Old Saturn who had the I as the outermost body, and remember that on the Old Sun there were such as had the astral body as their external sheath.

On the Old Moon there were beings whose external sheath was the etheric body. They consisted of etheric body, astral body, I, spirit-self, life-spirit and spirit-man and of one member more, the eighth, of which we cannot yet speak in the case of man, the holy spirit.

We could only have seen them as phantom-like beings in their etheric body; they had at that time the same degree of evolution as man today possesses. Christian esotericism calls them angels. They are beings who today stand directly above man since they have evolved to the stage of the Holy Spirit; one also calls them Spirits of Twilight or the Lunar Pitris.

[trinity]

The spirits of I-hood [archai] on Old Saturn had as their leader a Being whom man calls the Father-God.

The Spirits of Fire on Old Sun had as their Leader the Christ, or in the sense of St. John's Gospel, the Logos.

On Old Moon the Leader was the same Spirit as is known in Christianity as the Holy Ghost. Those beings who had passed through the human stage [CoC=4] on Old Moon [the angels] had no need to descend as far as the physical body here on the Earth.

[make up]

The planetary formations had become ever denser and denser.

Old Saturn in its densest state had only a warmth consistency.

Old Sun in its densest state consisted of what we see today in gases, in air.

You must, to be sure, picture these substances as somewhat denser than the present warmth-substance and the gases.

And in the Old Moon-stage the gaseous substances of the Old Sun had so far densified that they produced that pulpy, thickish, fluid flowing mass of which all the beings, even the highest, the animal-men, consisted on old Moon. You have more or less this substance if you imagine the white of a hen's egg, somewhat thickened, and into this substance of the human being the nervous system was incorporated.

[atmosphere]

Old Moon was surrounded by a kind of atmosphere formed quite differently from that of the Earth. We understand its character if we think of a passage in Goethe's Faust; it is where he wants to conjure up the spirits, he wants to make fire-air—air in which watery, mist-like substances are dissolved, which would then enable spirit beings to incorporate in it. This air permeated by watery substances (one calls it Fire-air, or Fire-mist) was breathed by the beings of Old Moon. They had no lungs, even the highest beings breathed through something akin to gills, as present-day fishes do.

This fire-air, called “Ruach” in the Hebrew tradition, can actually be made manifest in a certain way. “Ruach” has been lost to modern man, the old alchemists could, however, set up the necessary conditions for it, and could bring elemental beings into their service by its means. This fire-mist was thus something fully known in the old alchemical times, and the farther back we go, the more power had man to produce it. Our forefathers on Old Moon breathed fire-mist. It has evolved further, has differentiated itself into our present air and into whatever has arisen on the Earth under the influence of fire.

[relation with angels]

The smoke-like, steam-like Old Moon atmosphere, which had a certain degree of heat, was interpenetrated, at certain times more, at others less, by currents which hung down from the air somewhat like cords, and sank into the human bodies and permeated them. The human body on Old Moon hung on a kind of strand, which extended into the atmosphere, as today the child in the maternal body hangs on the navel-cord. It was like a cosmic navel-cord and out of the fire-mist substances entered the bodies comparable to what man himself creates today with the blood. The “I,” however, was outside man and sent through these cords into the bodies something similar to blood, and this substance streamed in and out of them. The beings never came in contact with the Moon-surface, they hovered and circled around it, as if they were flowing and floating. The Old Moon animal-men moved as the present water animals move in water. It was the work of the angels, the Spirits of Twilight, to let these blood-juices flow into the human beings.

These very different conditions had another consequence. On Old Moon a kind of blood-system began. From the cosmos there streamed in and out a substance resembling blood, as now the air streams in and out of the body, and there also arose for these Old Moon-men a capacity which only appears with the blood. This was the first sounding of inner tones for experiences of the soul.

It is only when beings possess an astral body, that sensation arises, and they could express this sensation in tones, and indeed in a remarkable way. They were not definitely formed sounds, they could not have cried out with pain, there was no independence of giving vent to sound, of crying out, but it occurred simultaneously with certain experiences.

[propagation impulses]

At definite seasons there took place on Old Moon what one could call a development of the propagation impulses, and the inner experiences of the beings at those times could be expressed in sound; otherwise they were silent. At a definite position of the Old Moon to the Sun, in a certain season, the Old Moon sounded forth into the cosmos. The beings upon it cried out their germinative power into the cosmos. We have relics of this preserved in the cries of certain animals, of the stag, for instance. The cry was more the precipitation of general processes, not of individual experiences which are voluntarily expressed. A cosmic event was finding its expression.

• We must take all this as but approximate description, for we are bound to words which are coined for things only come into existence in our Earth period. We should first have to invent a language if we would express what is seen by the eye of the seer. All the same these descriptions are important, for they are the first way of coming to the truth. Only through pictures, through imagination do we find the way to vision. We should make no abstract concepts, mechanical schemes, nor draw up diagrams of vibrations, but let pictures arise within us; that is the direct path, the first stage of knowledge. For as surely as man was present at that time with his forces, so true is it that if he pictures things to himself, this will guide him to the conditions in which he then existed.

After all the beings on the Old Moon had passed through their evolution and could ascend to higher stages, the time came when Old Moon and Sun again united, reverted to one body and so entered into pralaya. And then after they had gone through this dormant state together, a new existence shone out, the earliest proclamation of our Earth-existence.

1907-06-04-GA099

If we form a true picture of the Old Moon sphere, we could describe it as a being which itself possessed a sort of life, somewhat like a tree, upon which all manner of living things exist. The Old Moon was itself a kind of homogeneous plant-mineral. Its rocks were in fact only a hardening of the plant-mineral like mass, and its animal-plants grew out of the mass, while what we can call the men-animals circled around the Old Moon.

We must at the same time be clear that the I-consciousness still lived more or less in the atmosphere of the Old Moon in the fire-mist, that it was still a part, a member, of a higher being, in whom existed all the I's which today are to be found in bodies separated by the skin one from another. Thus as yet there were no human beings going about as today, equipped with I consciousness. On the other hand, however, something else was much more fully developed than on the Earth.

You know that what is called folk-soul has become a somewhat abstract idea today. Many think nowadays that the individual soul of man that dwells in his body is the actual reality. And if one speaks of German, French, Russian national souls, people look on that as more or less an abstraction, as a comprehensive concept, embracing the characteristics which the individual members of these nations possess. To the occultist this is not so at all. What one calls the folk soul, as the German, French, Russian folk-soul, is to him an absolutely independent entity. It is only that in our present Earth-existence the folk soul is purely a spiritual being, perceptible only to one who can ascend to the astral plane; there you could not deny it, for there it is present as an actual living being. You would encounter the folk soul there, as on the physical plane you encounter your friends.

On Old Moon it would have still less occurred to you to deny this group-soul, for at that time it had a still more real existence. It was the folk-soul, the race-soul, which guided the bloodstream down into the bodies, into those beings which circled round the Moon.

It is the destiny of our age to deny the existence of such beings as possess an actual life on the astral plane, and are not perceptible here on the physical plane. And we are at the very height of this materialistic evolution which prefers to deny such beings as folk-souls and race-souls.

...

You will understand that on this Old Moon a more common consciousness prevailed than here on Earth. On Earth a man feels himself as an individual, on Old Moon this was not the case. On Old Moon the group-soul was active, which then appeared on the Earth in such an attenuated form as Folk-soul; hence the whole Old Moon-globe had a common consciousness in a high degree. This common consciousness on the Moon felt itself as feminine.

Now you know that the Moon was irradiated by the Sun, and the Sun was experienced as the masculine. This is preserved in the old Egyptian myth, for instance, Moon as feminine-Isis; Sun Osiris, masculine. An I-consciousness, however, enclosed in the human body was altogether lacking. That was contained in the Old Moon's atmosphere.

1907-06-04-B-GA099

Lecture 12

1907-11-19-GA100

Old Moon as Cosmos of Wisdom, and Fire breathers

[Old Moon – Cosmos of Wisdom]

At the outset of our studies to-day we must deal with a word that in Spiritual Science is very important. In Christian occult science the Old Moon is called the Cosmos of Wisdom and the Earth the Cosmos of Love. By “Moon” we here mean the Moon Period of the Earth. The reason why the Old Moon is called the Cosmos of Wisdom is because all that was then developed was filled with wisdom.

When the Earth Period succeeded the Moon Period the Cosmos of Wisdom was replaced by the Cosmos of Love. When the Earth came forth from the darkness of Pralaya, the rudiments of the human being which had been developed in former periods reappeared — the physical, etheric and astral bodies. On the Old Moon Wisdom had been implanted in these bodies and their mutual relationships; we therefore find wisdom in the constitution of these three bodies. We find the greatest wisdom in the construction of the physical body, less in that of the etheric body, and still less in that of the astral body. If we thoughtfully observe the human body we discover this wisdom in each organ, in each part. For instance, if we study the upper portion of the human thighbone we find in it a network of cells beautifully constructed with a view to their purpose. No engineer of the present day would be able to produce these two columns, which bear the upper part of the human body with the smallest expenditure of matter and force. Wisdom was implanted in the human body as long as the divine Spirits worked upon it. As a rule the physical body is looked upon as the lowest part of man, unjustly so, for the very greatest wisdom can be seen just in the physical body. Only through this wisdom is it possible for the physical body to withstand the attacks continually made upon it by the astral body, and so not break up before the time. The pleasures and desires which hold sway in the physical body when tea and coffee and so on are taken, all these are attacks of the astral body on the physical body, and especially on the heart. It has therefore to be so wisely constructed that these attacks can be withstood for decades. Of course the suitable form of the heart could only be discovered by subjecting it to many transformations.

Wisdom lies at the foundation of the construction of the world, and it is for this reason that our intellect can now seek and find it there. But wisdom did not come suddenly into the world, it was only poured in slowly and gradually; and in the same way love will also permeate the Earth very gradually. The purpose of the evolution of our Earth is to be permeated with love. Love has only begun to permeate the Earth to the smallest extent, but it will spread more and more, and at the end of the Earth Period everything will be saturated with love, just as it was saturated with wisdom at the end of the Moon Period.

[Fire breathers]

On the Old Moon there was something else in place of the breathing of air. Whereas the man of the present day breathes air in and out and thereby has a source of warmth within himself, his ancestors on the Old Moon consisting of physical, etheric and astral bodies; breathed the substance of warmth or fire in and out. Man's predecessors on the old Moon were fire-breathers. Occult Science looks upon all matter only as the expression of spirit. We breathe in and out not air alone, we breathe in the Spirit it contains. Air is the body of Jehovah just as flesh is the body of man. The remembrance of this is expressed in the German legend of Wotan who rides in the Wind. What was breathed in and out on the Old Moon was also spirit.

Upon the Old Moon there were the same spiritual Beings as live upon the Earth; there they lived in fire, but upon the Earth they have become spirits of air. In cosmic evolution Beings remain behind in their development, just as some pupils are backward at school. The Beings who made the Sun their dwelling-place had developed more rapidly and made the transition from fire-spirits to air-spirits; but a great host of beings had not made this transition. The former now worked upon man as spiritual forces from outside, from Sun and Moon. Man takes them into himself through his breath. Between Man and these highly developed Sun-Spirits there are the spiritual Beings, who, it is true, developed very much further than man upon the Moon, but not as fast as the Sun-Spirits and Jehovah. They were unable as yet to influence man through his breathing, nevertheless they endeavoured to influence him. They were the Fire-Spirits who had not completed their task. They worked in the element of warmth and this existed in man his blood. They lived in this warmth.

Thus in the course of his evolution man was placed between the Air-spirits, who live in his breathing (the highest Spirits who permeate him with Spirit), and the fire-spirits who live in the warmth of his blood. They act in his blood as the opponents of the God Jehovah. Jehovah sought to hold men together by love in small groups, He desired to fill them with the feeling of belonging together. But if love had only existed in this form men would never have become independent beings; they would have had to develop love involuntarily. The Fire-spirits directed their attacks against this, with the result that man gained his personal freedom. The small groups of people were broken up. Jehovah's only interest was to lead people together in love, He worked in the blood as the God of blood-love. The action of the Fire-spirits was different; it was they who brought art and science to men. These Spirits are also called Luciferic Spirits. The further course of the evolution of humanity proceeded under the influence of Lucifer, who brings freedom and wisdom to man. Under the guidance of the God Jehovah men were to be led together through the principle of blood-brotherhood. The fact that man has become a free citizen of the Earth, — this he owes to Lucifer. Jehovah placed men in the Paradise of Love; then there appeared the Fire-spirit, the Serpent, in the form which man once possessed when he still breathed fire, and opened men's eyes to what still remained from the Old Moon. This Luciferic influence was perceived as a temptation. But those who were instructed in the occult schools did not look upon this enlightenment, as wrong; the great Initiates have not cast the Serpent down but, like Moses in the wilderness, they have raised it. (Numbers 21:8-9).

1908-02-29-GA102

Now we advance to Old Moon — Old Sun is metamorphosed into Old Moon. In the course of evolution this signifies that the Spirits of Form now lay aside their astral body also and that their lowest member is the I.

To describe their nature we should say: as the human being has the physical body for lowest member, so these Spirits of Form in the environment of Old Moon have the I as lowest member, then they have spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man, an eighth, ninth, and a tenth member. Thus they present their I to the outer world. It is very remarkable, but so it is: they present externally pure ‘I’s, pure egos; they simply displayed sheer egos to the outside world. The whole activity in the surroundings of the Moon was as if one met with beings who revealed their whole character and individuality — and this was from the Moon's atmosphere inwards. Just imagine all your I's which are here in your physical bodies being suddenly freed from that and from etheric and astral body, imagine only your egos there as the lowest member, and that they could manifest them-selves through space. Think of yourselves on the old Moon and your egos outside in the universe, but in such a way that they were embedded in the spiritual substances, only the lowest members of the Spirits of Form working in out of the air, then you will have a picture of how the Spirits of Form express themselves as sheer egos out of space. They have given up to the human beings the astral body which they still had on the Sun, so that on the Moon man now consisted of physical body, etheric body and astral body.

[Man]

We will now picture the human being of Old Saturn who has the first rudiments of the physical body. We must visualize hovering above him beings who are the Spirits of Form and have an etheric body, astral body, I, spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man, to the eighth member.

Now we must think of the next stage. In the Sun-human-being we have the physical body and the etheric body. The etheric body had been instilled into man by the Spirits of Form, keeping their astral body, so that they had their astral body, their I, up to the ninth member.

Then we pass on to the Moon. We have man consisting of the physical, etheric, astral bodies. The astral body has been sacrificed to Man by the Spirits of Form who then have as lowest member the I, and spirit-self, and so forth, up to the tenth member.

All that we call ‘man’ has gradually flowed down out of the environment of the planet, has been put together, so to speak, from outside. All that is within was once outside, has entered into man from without.

1908-05-20-GA103

(SWCC)

In Spiritual Science we say that Old Moon preceded the Earth. This Old Moon planetary stage of evolution, had also a mission. It did not yet have the task of developing love, but it was the planet or the cosmos of wisdom. Before it reached our earthly condition, our planet passed through the stage of wisdom. Illustrative observation: just look about you at all the creatures of nature. If you do not observe them merely with your understanding but with the forces of your heart and soul, then you will find wisdom everywhere stamped upon nature. The wisdom of which we are here speaking, is a kind of spiritual substance lying at the foundation of all things. Observe anything you wish in nature, and you will find it there. Take, for example, a piece of the thigh-bone and you will see that it is not composed of a solid mass, but it is a fine interweaving of supports which are arranged into a marvelous structure. And if we seek to discover the law upon which this bone is constructed, we find that it follows the law which develops the greatest strength with the least expenditure of material in order to be able to support the upper part of the human body. Our engineering art is not yet so far advanced that it can build such a highly artistic structure as the all over-ruling wisdom has fashioned. Mankind will not possess such wisdom until later in its evolution. Divine wisdom pervades the whole of nature; human wisdom will only gradually reach this height. In the course of time human wisdom will inwardly acquire what divine wisdom has secreted within the Earth. Just as wisdom was prepared upon the Moon, that it might be found everywhere on the Earth, so is love now being prepared here in this Earth evolution. If you were able to look back upon the ancient Moon with clairvoyant vision, you would see that wisdom was not to be found everywhere at that time. You would find many things still lacking in wisdom. Only gradually throughout the whole of the Moon evolution was wisdom stamped upon the outer world. When the Moon had fully completed its evolution, everything was then pervaded by a wisdom which was to be found everywhere. Inner wisdom first appeared upon the Earth with the human being, with the I. This inner human wisdom had to be developed by degrees

1908-06-22-GA104

Then once again came a kind of intermediate condition in which to outer observation (if this had indeed been possible) the luminous planet gradually ceases to glow, then it disappears from a certain stage of clairvoyant observation and is only apparent to the highest spiritual vision. Then it again emerges in a new form of existence, to a tied condition which we call the Old Moon condition. This is the third embodiment of our planet, the Old Moon. This has now developed so far in the evolution of its substance that what formerly upon Old Sun was merely gas has now condensed to water. Through the entry of the watery element, man — who gradually develops again like the plaint from the seed — can receive the astral body; so that man now consists of three parts, the physical body, etheric and astral bodies. He is not yet really man, for he does not yet possess an “I” in these three bodies.

Certain beings always remain behind at every stage, there-fore the beings who remained behind upon the Sun, who were unable to attain to the Moon stage and who only passed through their Sun stage on the Moon, are now unable to incorporate the astral body; upon the Moon they consist only of physical and etheric body. These are especially those who already remained behind upon the Sun, but who in the meantime had developed so far that they could take up an etheric body. These are again the ancestors of our present animals. Those, however, which were not yet so far advanced upon the Moon that they could take up an etheric body, are the ancestors of still lower beings, the present plants. Thus upon the Moon we have three kingdoms, the human kingdom, consisting of physical body, ether body and astral body; the animal kingdom, consisting of physical body and etheric body; and the vegetable kingdom consisting only of physical body.

Again there are certain beings who about the middle of the Moon period pass through their human stage. They are the spirits who in the literature of spiritual science are usually called the Spirits of Twilight or Angels. They also carry man within them as memory. And again the Moon passes through seven such stages. At each stage there are beings who can pass through human existence. It is always the case that some beings hurry forward and others remain behind. Thus upon the Moon too we have seven grades of beings who had passed through their human stage when the Moon had finished its evolution.

Now in order to understand Old Moon fully, we must mention something of importance which took place in the course of the Old Moon evolution. When it began, or at least shortly after the beginning, it was a fluid globe. Had it developed further in this way throughout its seven stages it would not have been able to give man the right foundation for his further development. It was only fitted to be a preparatory stage for earthly humanity by dividing first into two planetary bodies. One of these was the forerunner of the present sun, and the other which separated was the forerunner of the present earth, but in such a way that you must imagine the earth mingled with the present moon, so that the present earth and moon were then one. Now imagine these two bodies, earth plus moon on the one hand and the sun on the other, separated from each other; the Old Moon as a watery body and the Old Sun on the way to becoming a fixed star. Something very essential was connected with this division. It was primarily the sun which brought about the separation and took with it the finest parts, the most etheric substances, while the grosser substances remained behind in the Moon, that is, the present earth plus the present moon. Hence the sun is composed of extremely fine substances, while the Moon becomes a much denser body, a watery mass. Through the sun taking with it the finest and most spiritual forces, it could now be the arena for much more highly developed beings. In fact, many of those high beings who were still able to bear the Saturn existence would have been hindered in their development if they had been bound to the Moon any longer. They needed a field of activity with the finest materials; only there could they develop. So they drew their field of action forth and developed further upon the sun. On the other hand, with the Moon, which had suffered a densification through the exit of the finer substances, there were connected those human germs which consisted of physical body, etheric body and astral body, and there were also the germs of the animals and plants. Now this ancient Moon had an extraordinary appearance. You would not yet ford any-thing like rocks or arable soil, although it already circled round its sun. Mineral substances did not yet exist. The principal part of this Moon, upon which these beings hopped about, so to speak, was a kind of mush, a kind of pulp or puree. The basic substance of the ancient Moon consisted of this puree, just as the basic substance of our earth consists of soil. In it were embedded masses, like, shall we say, wood and the bark of trees. If you were to climb a mountain to-day you would walk upon rocks. At that time you would have passed over a basis which, if it was solid, was something like a surface of wood substance. Instead of granite you would have found blocks which might be compared to wood. Of course this is speaking comparatively. Such was the basic substance and out of it came continually luxuriant growths. This was the lowest kingdom, the present mineral kingdom, which at that time lay between the present mineral and vegetable kingdoms. In a certain way it was alive. It continually produced luxuriant growths. It was not like it is now. If to-day there should be a deposit of soil which one wishes to be rid of, it must be carried away by external means. This substance of the ancient Moon died away — but not like separate plants — it died away and formed itself afresh. It was continually in inward living motion. The fundamental substance of the Moon was in a continuous state of decay and growth. And out of this foundation grew another kingdom. Through the exit of the Moon from the Sun the earlier kingdoms had changed. Upon the Sun they corresponded approximately to our kingdoms. Through the exit of the Moon the ancient plant kingdom-was forced down about half a stage, and so were the other kingdoms, so that the next kingdom was a kind of animal-plant kingdom, but it grew out of the ground. The animal-plants grew out of the ground; they were in the form of plants, but when one took hold of them they had sensations, they squeaked, etc. They were actually half animal and half plant; plants inasmuch as they grew on the ground, most of them firmly rooted to the ground, and animals inasmuch as they had a certain capacity for sensation. And the kingdom which preceded the present human beings were human-animals, beings standing between the present man and the present animals; higher than the present apes, but not as high as the present human beings. That was approximately the form of our human ancestors upon the Moon.

Legends and myths have preserved these truths in a wonderful way. Think how a German legend has preserved the secret hidden behind all this. Certain beings always remain behind. Beings between the present plants and the present animals, which could only take root in a vegetable basis such as was the substance of the Old Moon — these beings also remained behind, and on this account are incapable of thriving on the mineral ground of our present earth. Our present plants can grow in this, but those which stood between the plants and animals and which needed a living basis, cannot, if they have remained behind, grow in mineral soil. Mistletoe is such a plant. Hence it has to “sponge” upon the present plants because it is a backward being. It no longer has sensation, although the astral body enveloping mistletoe is quite different from that of other plants.

The German legend perceived that mistletoe does not belong to our earth, that it is a stranger. In the god Baldur the legend recognizes the god of the earth-sun, the earth force. No being of the earth can approach hire with hostile feelings. Hence also the god whom the German legend knew to be a straggler, namely, Loki, cannot kill Baldur with anything belonging to the earth; he has to kill him with a branch of mistletoe, because this is a stranger among the creations of the earth, and for this reason can serve the straggler, Loki, who is not related to the earth gods. Deep wisdom is hidden behind these legends, and in this legend of Baldur-Loki, this can be clearly traced. It can also be seen in the customs connected with the mistletoe. If you were to study these you would fund that what is said about them proceeds from an ancient wisdom.

Then in the second half of the Old Moon-evolution came the time when the Sun-beings, as well as the beings who had remained behind upon the Moon., had attained what had to be attained during the old Moon period. And then the Sun and Moon united again; they came together and for a time continued their evolution as one body.

Then the evolutionary condition gradually darkened and passed through the purely spiritual condition usually called Pralaya, and then came the dawning of our Earth evolution. At first this dawning cosmic body contained not only our present earth substance; it consisted of what you would obtain if you were to mix together in a gigantic cauldron the substance of the present sun, earth and moon. That was approximately the condition at the beginning of the earth's evolution. This was first a kind of repetition of the Saturn condition and then of the Sun condition and then of the Moon condition.

[24 elders]

Now the most important thing for us to realize is that man really only becomes man in the present sense in the middle of the Earth evolution. In the Earth period also we have to distinguish seven conditions. We are now in the fourth. Three have gone before and three will follow. It was in the fourth principal cycle that our present human race was to become man.

Now, just as in all the Rounds upon Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon, certain beings reached the human stage (upon Old Saturn the Archai, upon Old Sun the Archangels, and upon Old Moon the Angels), there were always beings who remained behind. Upon Old Moon there were also beings who could no longer reach the human stage, backward Angels, shall we say, who could only catch up their human stage upon the Earth planet during the first three Rounds. Man reached this stage at the fourth. We therefore say: Before man three other kinds of beings passed through the human stage upon the earth, and the fourth to pass through the human stage upon the earth is man himself.

At that moment in cosmic evolution when man is about to become man, all the beings who have been able to pass through the human stage, throughout Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon and the first three Rounds of the Earth, are beings who have more or less progressed beyond man. But they are all able to look back, as it were, and remember the stage at which they themselves passed through the human stage. They could look down upon the evolving human being and say, “He is now becoming something which we have already been, something which we can understand; although we passed through the stage under different circumstances.” For this reason they could guide and regulate his evolution from the spiritual world.

Let us enumerate how many of these beings there are who are able to look back at the human stage, who are able to under-stand evolving man.

• Seven from the Old Saturn evolution,
• plus seven from the Old Sun,
• plus seven from the Old Moon stage,
• three from the Earth; twenty-four beings in all.

Twenty-four “Men” look down upon the present man. These are the beings whom for good reasons we have called the guides of evolution, the directors of time. Time is connected with evolution. They are the twenty-four Elders who meet us in the Apocalypse of John. They are the same beings who are described in the part relating to the secret of the seven seals.

They are described as the real directors of history, the true Alpha and Omega. Thus we have also found the twenty-four Elders again here and you see how the Apocalyptist who wrote this important document has secreted in his pictures in a wonderful way what we ourselves are able to find from the study of the spiritual evolution of the world.

Now certain beings had remained behind at every stage; so that

• the backward Old Saturn beings came out upon the Old Sun as the first foundations of the present animal kingdom, and
• the backward Old Sun beings came out at the Old Moon stage as the first foundations of the present plant kingdom.

Only upon the Earth did a stage of evolution appear as the mineral kingdom. We have stressed the fact that upon the Moon there was as yet no mineral kingdom, man had as yet no rocks to walk upon. At the time when present man began to pass through the human stage, the first mineral masses, the first crystals appeared in the planet which then stood at a stage between the substances of the ancient Moon and the present earthly substance. This was the moment when the mineral kingdom burst forth, and you find this bursting forth described in a very unique manner in the Apocalypse of John where he says: “Around the throne it was crystallized like a glassy sea.” This “glassy sea” is to indicate the bursting forth, the budding forth of the mineral kingdom in its primary form. Thus we see that this secret of cosmic evolution is also indicated in the Apocalypse of John. And from it we have also learnt to perceive that to this degree the writer wishes to present to us in his mighty pictures exactly what we are able to recognize in the development of the earth from the spirit life itself. But in this way the Apocalyptist has led us, at the beginning of his book, to the heights where man can see the pictures of the future stages of evolution.

1908-08-07-GA105

We have to think of Old Moon as a heavenly body similar to our Earth, that towards the end passed through a spiritualizing process. That which had been split asunder was blended once more, and converted into an undifferentiated condition. It then passed through a kind of cosmic sleep after which there emerged from the womb of the cosmos that nebulous etheric sphere which is the re-birth of Old Moon. For us this is no material mass, but within this globe dwell all those mighty beings whom we have designated as the Spirits of Motion, of Form, etc. Only the germ of man dwelt in this globe, as yet he had no ego; but all those spiritual beings who already had a certain degree of development behind them were intimately connected with this nebula.

...

We shall now consider for a short time somewhat more concretely what took place at that time upon the Earth. We know that when Man came over from Old Moon he possessed only his physical body, etheric body, and astral body. At the time of the separation of the sun the physical body had not progressed far enough for the sense organs to be able to perceive external objects. These had existed indeed from the time of Old Saturn, but Man could not perceive external objects by them.

Upon Old Moon, Man possessed organs which evoked pictures within him. The position at that time was approximately as follows. Imagine that one human being approached another, he could not have perceived the other's external form, but a kind of dream picture would rise within him; and by the form and colour of the picture he knew that an enemy drew near, and that he must flee from him. This was picture consciousness, and had a real relationship to the soul qualities of the beings in a Man's vicinity.

1908-08-08-GA105

Let us now follow man's further progress. The Sun gradually passed over into the Moon incarnation, having meanwhile entered into a condition of rest. On the material side the airy formation condensed to a watery one, and thus the fluid element arose. The ancient Moon was in fact a fluidic body, in it you might again have found physical human bodies as plastic structures, consisting now of flowing sap, or watery constituents, in which currents of air coursed just as breath and warmth intermingle in man's body today. The physical body now consisted of three parts water, gas or air, and warmth; and the etheric body which it had previously possessed now passed over with it into the Moon period. Man was now in a position to assimilate an astral body, and from this time onwards he consisted of three principles: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body.

During the Moon period it was not possible for all the Beings connected with it to maintain the same rate of progress in their development. It was not only during the development of our Earth, but also earlier, during the Moon development, that the Sun separated off from the common world-body; so that in the middle of the Old Moon stage we have two spheres—the Moon (earth plus moon) and the Sun, which as you know had departed along with the most advanced of the spiritual Beings. Through the withdrawal of the finer forces and higher Beings the grosser had been left behind upon the Moon; this planet therefore (Earth plus Moon) began to densify and harden. You must realize that even during the ancient Moon period the Sun with its Beings worked for a time from outside upon the backward Moon-body.

It will now be necessary to describe more in detail these bodies which had remained behind after the departure of the Sun, for we went through a portion of our evolution upon them.

On Saturn there was only the physical body of man; he was at the mineral stage. Upon the Sun he raised himself to the vegetable stage, he had then physical body and etheric body, but at this stage certain beings became backward, they did not rise so high as to the human-plant existence upon the ancient Sun, they remained at the Saturn stage. These were the forerunners of certain animals of the present day. Man's past reaches back to ancient Saturn, whereas the forerunners of a certain portion of our present animal kingdom had its origin only on the Sun as a second kingdom to that of man. From the same cause (the remaining behind of certain beings) man, when he had worked himself upward on the Moon to a condition when he was the possessor of three principles, was surrounded by two other kingdoms; one a kingdom which on the Moon had remained behind at the stage of plants, and one that was still at the stage of minerals, these last were the forerunners of our present plants.

Our mineral kingdom did not as yet exist on the Moon. It came into existence last, as a sort of deposit from the other kingdoms. Of course anyone who affirms such things knows very well that it seems nonsense according to present ideas to say that plants could originate without the basis of a mineral kingdom, but formerly conditions were entirely different. In fact, upon the ancient Moon man developed in the animal kingdom; animals in the vegetable kingdom; and at the time when the Moon was separated from the Sun all the kingdoms were arranged in the following way:—

1. The human kingdom (really animal kingdom, consisting of physical body, etheric, and astral bodies).
2. The animal kingdom (really vegetable kingdom, consisting of physical and etheric bodies).
3. The vegetable kingdom (really mineral kingdom, because it consisted only of a physical body).

Our present mineral kingdom did not as yet exist.

Now, when the Moon and Sun separated the Beings and forces of the Sun were completely liberated from the gross material of the Moon, so that they could act all the more strongly. The result was that all three kingdoms were raised about half a stage higher. The human astral body was lifted out of its close connection with the lower principles, so that viewing man at the beginning of the Moon period with his physical, etheric, and astral bodies, one would later have perceived a change. Through the Sun having departed and having begun to shine from outside, the astral and etheric bodies were partly liberated. The consequence was that something happened which we must try to picture in the following way: Imagine that the man of today consisted only of physical body, etheric body, and astral body; and that there now came an external force which pushed out man's etheric and astral bodies; to the clairvoyant these would now exist outside him, but through these two bodies being liberated from the weight of the physical body man could be raised about half a stage upward in evolution.

Something like this took place at the time of which I am speaking; man was lifted up, he became a Being standing midway between the present man and the present animal. In a Spiritual sense he was, however, guided and directed by the exalted Sun-Powers.

In like manner the two other kingdoms were raised about half a stage, so that about the middle of the Moon period we do not find our present kingdoms, but intermediate ones: we have a human-animal kingdom, an animal-vegetable kingdom, and a vegetable-mineral kingdom.

We on the earth walk upon a solid mineral ground; the Beings of the ancient Moon walked on what was the lowest kingdom of the Moon—the vegetable-mineral. This basic substance of the Moon was not a mineral substance such as we have on the earth, but something that was half-alive. One has an approximate idea of what this basic substance of the Moon was if we think of something resembling a mossy bog or boiled spinach, a kind of mush, but living, bubbling. There were no rocks projecting out of this mass, but there was something like dense, woody, vegetable masses, horny structures; and these took the place of our present rocks. To clairvoyant vision it appears as if man moved upon a vegetable-mineral foundation which later underwent condensation and became the stones of today. From out this substance grew the animal-plants. These were more or less firmly rooted; they were more movable, it is true, than plants are now, but they grew out of this viscous element and had a certain degree of sensation when touched. Animal-man rose from out the finest substances; he by no means reached down into the grossest, but formed his physical body from the finest substances.

This physical body, which was in a continual state of transformation, had a very strange appearance: the clairvoyant is unable to discover upon the ancient Moon a human head such as man possesses today. Although the physical body was still soft and fluidic, he can find only animal-like heads, and from out this animal-head formation the etheric and astral bodies projected.

To physical sight all these animal-men had various forms that recall our present animals, but they only remind us of these; it is only when we rise from physical sight to astral vision that we perceive the higher nature of the animal-man of the Moon. Such were the denizens of the ancient Moon.

When we examine closely the course of human development and culture, in so far as it is of a mental and spiritual nature, we find in many instances that the myths and legends that have been handed down to us are in many respects wiser than our present-day science. When more is known about the spiritual foundations of the world men will recognize in many of the myths, legends, and fairy tales a truly deep wisdom, deeper than science, which has apparently progressed so far.

Let us return for a moment to the ancient Moon, in the basic substance of which only the ancient animal-plants could flourish, and let us leave the study of the further development of the Moon itself. We must clearly understand that all these Moon-beings were the forerunners of the present Earth-beings. Our present mineral kingdom has sprung from the vegetable-mineral of the Moon epoch, from the animal-plants have sprung our present plants, and from the backward animals, men. From those men who do not progress have sprung the largest portion of our present day animals. Thus we see that our minerals, our plants, our animals, and our human beings are really the descendants of the Beings of the ancient Moon.

There is today a remarkable plant which does not thrive in a mineral soil, namely, the mistletoe. It is remarkable because when observed clairvoyantly it is seen to be different from other plants. It exhibits rudiments of an astral body passing into the mistletoe, as is the case with animals. Although this plant has no sensation it has something appertaining to the outer form of animals. This is because it belongs to those backward plant-animals of the Moon period, which were unable to become plants, and on this account cannot thrive on a mineral soil, but require other plants on which to take root.

The mistletoe has preserved the condition of the ancient Moon. The ancestors of some of the European peoples knew this fact and embodied the knowledge in a wonderful legend. The Germanic and Norse peoples recognized in Loki a power still belonging to those forces which passed from the field of activity on ancient Moon to the Earth. When the earth became Earth it came under the influence of other forces, which these ancient peoples symbolized in the God Baldur. He represents all those forces which work upon mature earth-beings, but those who had remained at the Moon stage felt an inner relationship to Loki, the Moon-God. Hence arose the wonderful legend telling how once upon a time when the Gods were playing, all creatures swore an oath that they would not injure Baldur; the mistletoe alone did not take this oath. Why? Because it is not related to the earth forces incarnated in Baldur, but is a backward Moon-creation, and so has power to injure the basic earth-force—Baldur. Loki had to be served by a being belonging to himself. This legend has its origin deep down in the hidden foundations of the world. Further, when we know that in many respects what is opposed to healthy development must be of service to unhealthy development, we understand the wise intuition of our forefathers which led them to look to the mistletoe for special curative forces and juices. They knew that of which we have just spoken, hence the role they gave to the mistletoe. From this example we can see that profound wisdom regarding the evolution of the world is frequently hidden in myth and legend.

Through the withdrawal of a part of the etheric and astral body of the animal-man upon the Moon the necessity arose, even at that time, for a change of consciousness. But we must first speak of another development which ran parallel with this.

1909-04-14-GA110

synopsis:

The Spirits of Motion condensed the old Sun to a watery globe called Moon, whose size from the present Sun as its centre would reach to the present Mars. The creation of Moon was different from the others, it implied later a splitting into two globes so that the Sun contracted and was surrounded by another body, in the orbit of the present Mars, and in the periphery of the original single body. The origin of Evil and the Fight in Heaven. The Planetoids.

1909-06-09-GA109

The lecture yesterday brought our study of the evolution of our planet to the stage known as Old Moon. We heard that the first embodiment of our planet was that of Old Saturn, the second that of Old Sun and the third that of Old Moon.

[separation of Sun]

We came to the point in yesterday's lecture where it was made clear that if everything had progressed exactly as hitherto, man would not have been able to keep pace with the tempo of the cosmic evolution of other beings. Hence a kind of severance took place at a certain point during the Old Moon embodiment.

The Sun, progressing as it was within the cosmic expanse, separated from the planetary body together with the finest substances and higher beings. The less progressed part of the planetary body, namely, Old Moon itself, still containing all that constitutes our present earth and present moon, remained as a kind of cloud-body. Certain conditions brought about a densification or hardening on Old Moon and the same happened to the beings inhabiting it.

When the Sun had separated, its forces worked upon Old Moon from outside. The subsequent human-animal-plant kingdom that came into existence on Old Moon now received the forces of the Sun from outside. After the separation, the three kingdoms on Old Moon came into existence.

[mineral-plant]

As yet there was no mineral kingdom but what took shape, after the hardening process, as the lowest kingdom was a kind of mineral-plant kingdom—mineral substance that was plantlike in character, or, if you prefer, plant substance that was mineral in character. This formed the ground of Old Moon; it was a kind of semi-solid, semi-fluid foundation. On the earth today we walk about on a mineral ground, on Old Moon it was semi-solid, semi-fluid ground, a kind of plant-mineral soil. Think of a mass of spongy, plantlike substance on which human beings walked. This was the character of the lowest kingdom on Old Moon, a kingdom that was at the same time half-living.

The ground of our earth today has become comparatively static; volcanic activity is the only reminder of a certain inner life. On Old Moon there were no such conditions. We may perhaps speak later on about what an occultist has to say on the subject of earthquakes and volcanic activity.

[plant-animal]

Just as organs in a plant grow and subsequently die, so did this half-living substance on Old Moon. The Old Moon was like a great organism, living and mobile, on which the beings living might have felt like parasites of today. These Old Moon plants were composed of mineral substance, had life in them and were mobile; they were plant-mineral in character. Nothing would have been found resembling our rocks of today; instead, there were horny or woody formations. In the environment of Old Moon, like a kind of atmosphere, were a few cloud-masses composed of a half-watery, half-living substance in which the beings of the next kingdom, half animal, half plant in character, were embedded. If you were to crush a tree, causing something akin to the feeling experienced by an animal, that would be remotely comparable with what was experienced by this animal-plant kingdom, which could not exist as such on the earth today.

As has often been said, not only are there pupils in school who make no progress but in the whole process of evolution there are always beings who remain at a standstill and who, together with the forms that belong to them and express what they are, become retarded. Thus, on the earth itself there were still certain moon beings who were not sufficiently advanced to keep abreast of evolution on the earth. These beings were obliged to create in their outer expressions the condition that had been essential to their life on Old Moon. As you know, plants on Old Moon were not rooted in mineral soil as they are today but in the half-living ground of the planet.

Mistletoe, for example, is a descendant, a straggler, of an Old Moon form; it is obliged to take root in plant-soil. In folk myths there are many indications of this, for example, in the legend of Baldur and Loki. The latter is a being belonging to Old Moon, whereas Baldur is a being inwardly connected with earth and sun evolution. To interpret a legend or myth it is necessary to know in which sphere of occult investigation the connections can be discovered. External science could be so enriched by the fruits of clairvoyance that it would recognize in a legend much more than folk fantasy. Spiritual science must teach one to investigate with the whole soul instead of with the intellect only.

[animal-human]

There was still a third kingdom on Old Moon, between the animal and human kingdoms; it was the animal-human kingdom. The forms of those animal-men were quite different from what is pictured by materialistic science today. They were animal-men although certain important members of their constitution were not yet actually within them.

While he is asleep today, man's physical and etheric bodies remain in the bed and his astral body is outside. Fundamentally speaking, during sleep he is therefore in the physical world with only the lesser half of his constitution. Man's physical and etheric bodies belong to an earlier, cosmic stage of consciousness. Clairvoyant vision reveals this condition to have been permanent on Old Moon. The astral body then was never entirely within the physical and etheric bodies but was nevertheless connected more fundamentally and definitely with the human being than is the case during sleep today.

The head of the man of Old Moon was not self-enclosed as is the case today. A residue of what the organs in the head were at that time is the place at the top of a baby's head that stays soft and open for a long time. On Old Moon the head of the human being was still open. Were you to draw a line vertically downward from this soft area, you would meet the pineal gland. Today it is stunted and withered but it was an important organ during the Old Moon embodiment. It was a kind of sense organ that connected man's physical and etheric bodies with his astral body. Through this organ, which was a delicate, luminous body, man's astral body radiated into the other bodies.

His consciousness was neither that of sleep nor of waking life. He did not perceive outer objects. His consciousness might be compared with that of the dream today. The pineal gland at that time was a kind of warmth organ, emitting powerful, luminous rays of warmth. When on Old Moon man was moving about, the function of this organ was to show him the direction he must take.

Man's perception on Old Moon consisted in something like a dream picture rising up within him. There was as yet no seeing or perceiving objects but man felt an inner up-and-down surge of living pictures of which the dream pictures of today are only a feeble shadow. Everything a man set out to do on Old Moon, how he searched for his food and so forth, was always activated by these pictures that were connected with the outer world. He could allow himself to be directed and led by them. When he was looking for food he was guided by certain pictures that rose up before him, and he was warned of danger also by them.

The astral body extended far beyond the physical and the etheric bodies; the form of the physical body alone could be called human.

On Old Moon man's inner warmth was not yet constant. Today, on the earth, this has been achieved. On Old Moon man absorbed warmth from the warmth around him and emitted it again, just as he inhales and exhales air today. The process became visible in his organ of warmth. It gleamed and was luminous when he was absorbing warmth and darkened when he was exhaling it. If you could have seen what was happening, the process would have suggested the image of a fire-breathing dragon. All these happenings have a deep significance. Figures such as the archangel Michael with the fire-breathing dragon under his feet, or St. George. fighting with the dragon, are pictures reminiscent of those conditions. The fire breather of Old Moon, the ancient dragon, is a figure that once actually existed. It portrays a stage that would have to be surmounted.

This is the explanation of such matters that is derived from occult knowledge. Later on, when spiritual science is more widely known, there will be a different view of truths that have been preserved in imagery and pictures of this kind.

This animal-man form was quite different from that of man today because the astral body did not sink into the physical body as deeply as it did later on the earth. Man is the figure he is today because the astral body eventually sank right down into him. It could be said that what did not, during the Old Moon period of evolution, allow itself to descend into the depths of the physical world, now resolved to do so during the earth period. But if this process in the cosmos had taken place at an earlier time, man would have remained at a much lower evolutionary stage. During the period of earth evolution, he succeeded, with the help of the spirit, in acquiring for himself the noble, godlike form that is now his. If the possibility of developing this stature had already existed on Old Moon, the descent of the astral body would have taken place prematurely. The divine Guides have always chosen the right moment.

[final Conditions]

The essential achievement of Old Moon evolution was that time was left for the evolution of the physical body, and on the earth man was to be permeated by the astral body after having evolved physically on Old Moon at a lower stage. Then again there took place a certain reunion of the Old Moon into the Sun, which had previously separated: the Old Moon globe was again absorbed by the Sun and everything passed into a cosmic sleep, a pralaya. This began at the time when the Old Moon returned again into the Sun.

Hence the evolution of Old Moon proceeded by the following stages:

• firstly, a kind of preparation;
• secondly, separation into Sun and Moon;
• thirdly, formation of three kingdoms on Old Moon;
• fourthly, return into the Sun;
• fifthly, ebb;
• sixthly, the cosmic sleep.

[Earth stage]

...

On Saturn it was the Thrones who made the sacrifice of pouring out from their own substance the material for man's physical body. On Old Sun it was the Dominions or Spirits of Wisdom who provided the substance for the etheric body, and on Old Moon it was the Spirits of Movement who made possible the formation of the astral body.

[see Schema FMC00.077A at CoC level 8]

On the earth the Spirits of Form or Powers instill the I, bringing it about that in this phase of evolution the ego enters gradually into what had come into existence, namely, man's physical body, etheric body and astral body. This is the work of the Spirits of Form.

1909-06-26-GA112

(SWCC) talks about the origin of the group souls on Old Moon (and continues about how they appeared in the early phases of the Earth stage)

.. the physical body, having come into existence on Old Saturn, passed through its third stage on Old Moon; the etheric body, associated to the physical on Old Sun, had now advanced to its second stage of perfection; the astral body, having just been added to the others, was in its first stage on the Old Moon.

.. Whereas man was preserved in a certain degree of uniformity during the Saturn and Sun development .. during the old lunar evolution ... the whole Old Moon-sphere became divided into two parts — into a Sun' and a Moon' satellite. So that whereas in the case of Saturn and Sun we have to consider the evolution of a single planet, only the first part of the lunar evolution can be described as that of a single planet. In the first part of the lunar evolution everything that now composes our Earth, Sun, and Moon was comprised in that one Old Moon-sphere. Later there was a division into two bodies. What appeared then as Sun’ was not our current Sun, nor yet the Old Sun of which we have already spoken; it was a new sphere which became separated from the old Moon as a Sun’, around which another planet circled, which, again, we call the ‘Old Moon’.

The meaning of this cleavage or division is:

• higher beings and finer substances quit the whole mass and left as ‘Sun’ with its separation;
• the grosser substances and lower beings remained behind on the Old Moon.

Thus we have two instead of one planetary body during the old Moon evolution: a Sun-body harbouring the higher beings and a Moon-body harbouring the lower beings. Had no division of the single planet occurred, certain beings who evolved on the Moon after the separation, would have failed to keep pace with the more rapid evolution of the solar beings. They were not mature enough for the solar evolution and were therefore constrained to separate the coarser substances and build for themselves a sphere of action apart. The higher beings, on their part, would have found it impossible to remain united to the coarser substances, for their more rapid progress would have been hindered. They too required a special sphere for their evolution, and the Sun was this sphere. Let us now turn our attention to the beings who took their abode upon the Sun and the Moon respectively, after the division of the Old Moon.

.. the human beings on Old Moon were precisely the beings who could not keep pace with the rapid evolution of the Sun-beings, who had gone forth with the Sun and now abode surrounded by finer substances on that sphere. These human beings coarsened during the lunar evolution.

Man was constituted at that time of a physical, an astral, and an etheric body and his stage of evolution was therefore the same as that of the animal of the present day, but you must not imagine that the human being was actually an animal on the old Moon. The human form had an altogether different appearance from that of the animal on the Earth at the present day. Were I to describe the human form of that time, it would appear most fantastic to you.

Thus we find on the Old Moon forerunners of our present humanity, possessing physical, astral, and etheric bodies which, after the separation into Sun and Moon, became denser and coarser than would have been the case had these beings remained united with the Sun.

Now the beings who had gone forth with the Sun had also passed through the three stages of Saturn, Sun, Moon. Their direction however was that of the Sun, whereas the ancestors of man followed the Moon. Among the Sun-beings we distinguish a threefold nature which runs parallel with that of the human being. There were beings on the Sun who had also advanced to the stage of threefold nature (astral, etheric, and physical body), only in their case, after the separation, instead of becoming coarser, these principles grew finer. Picture the process as follows: After the division of the old Moon, our human forefathers became beings of greater density and coarseness than they were before that event; their tendency was to harden. On the other hand, the corresponding beings on the Sun grew finer. The addition of the astral body during the lunar evolution had in a certain way the effect of lowering man to the level of the animal. But the beings who had kept aloof and had withdrawn to the Sun grew finer and more perfect.

While man was hardening on the Moon, beings of high spirituality were evolving on the Sun. In spiritual science this spirituality is named the counterpart of that which developed on the Moon. On the Moon the human beings developed to the level of the animal, though they were not animals. Now in dealing with the animal kingdom, we are justified in distinguishing different grades of animals.

• The animal-man on Old Moon also appeared in three grades differing from one another, and known in spiritual science as the grades of the ‘Bull’, the ‘Lion’, and the ‘Eagle’. There were therefore on the Moon three distinct groups: Bull-men, Lion-men, Eagle-men. Though we may in no sense apply these designations to the present animals, it is nevertheless true that the degenerated nature of the so-called lion-men on the Moon is in a certain way expressed in the present cat species, and in the character of the hoofed animals is expressed the degenerated nature of the so-called bull-men, and so on. Such was the nature of the human being, in a densified state, after three stages of evolution.

• On the Sun were the spiritual counterparts of these beings, also in three groups. While the astral development on the Moon lent form to these three types of animal-men, the corresponding spiritual human beings evolved on the Sun as angelic spiritual beings, which are also designated, but this time in their character of spiritual counterparts) as ‘Lion’, ‘Eagle’, and ‘Bull’. When we therefore behold the Sun, we find spiritual beings of whom we may say that they represent to us the splendid prototypes fashioned in wisdom.
• And on Old Moon we have something like hardened reproductions of the beings above on the Sun.

... The reproductions down below on the Moon are not without connection with their prototypes on the Sun. We have on the Moon a group of primitive bull-men and above, on the Sun, a group of spiritual beings described as ‘Bull-spirits’; and there is a spiritual connection between type and prototype. For the group-soul is the prototype and functions as prototype, upon the type (or reproduction). The forces proceed from the group-soul and govern its image below, the lion-spirit directing the lion-men, the eagle-spirit the eagle-men, and so on. Had the spirits in those high regions remained united with the earth, had they remained bound to their counterparts and been compelled to dwell in them, they would have been hemmed in and unable to exercise the forces, upon which the preservation and development of their counterparts depended. They came to the following conclusion: ‘We must now care in a higher sense for that which develops on the Moon.’ The Bull-spirit said to himself: ‘I must care for the bull-men; I cannot find on the Moon the conditions necessary for my own progress; therefore I must dwell on the Sun and from there direct my forces to the bull-men below.’ The same applies to the Lion-spirit and the Eagle-spirit. That is the meaning of evolution. Certain beings required a higher sphere of action than those who were, so to speak, their physical counterparts. The latter needed a lower, inferior sphere. To ensure their freedom of action, the higher beings were compelled to withdraw with the Sun and send down their forces from outside. Thus we see how there is one evolution with a downward, and another with an upward trend.

The development on the Old Moon proceeded apace. Through the action of the higher beings upon their counterparts, the Old Moon became spiritualized, so that it could reunite at a later period with the Sun. The prototypes now again united with their types, absorbing them into themselves as it were. There again followed a cosmic night or Pralaya, after which here issued from the dark womb of the universe our Earth whose mission it is to advance human evolution so far that man can add the ‘I’ to his physical, astral, and etheric bodies. This, however, must be preceded by a repetition of the earlier stages. That is a cosmic law: whenever a higher stage is to be reached, all that is previously achieved must first be repeated.

1910-GA013

Outline of Esoteric Science

Note: this description is more complete than any other, so more rich in descriptive imagery, but not as structured as other descriptions in terms of CoL and CoF cycles, and the changing conditions and influences of the different spiritual beings in each cycle.

[describing the major pralaya between planetary stages]

Following the pause in outer activity, what was previously the Sun emerges again out of cosmic sleep, becoming once more perceptible to the powers of spiritual observation. It was previously perceptible to these powers, but had disappeared from view during the period of rest.

A twofold element now appears within the newly emerging planetary being that shall be called Old Moon.

This Old Moon, however, must not be confused with the part of it that is at present the Earth's moon.

• The first thing to be noted is that that part of the world mass which, during the Old Sun stage, had detached itself as a new Old Saturn, is once more within the totality of the new planetary organism. During the pause, this new Old Saturn had again united itself with the Old Sun. Everything that was within the original Old Saturn reappears at first as one cosmic formation.
• The second thing to be noted is that the human life bodies formed upon the Old Sun were absorbed during the pause by what, in a certain sense, forms the spiritual sheath of the planet.

Thus these life bodies do not appear at this time as something united with the corresponding physical human bodies, but these latter appear at first by themselves. They bear within their inner nature all that has been worked into them on both Old Saturn and Old Sun, but they lack an ether or life body.

Moreover, they are unable to incorporate this ether body immediately into themselves, for during the pause the ether body itself has passed through a development to which the physical bodies are not yet adapted.

[recapitulation is thus needed for incorporation]

[CoL 1 - Old Saturn recapi]

In order that this adjustment may be achieved, once more a recapitulation of the Old Saturn activities occurs at the beginning of the Old Moon evolution. The physical life of Man recapitulates the stages [CoL] of the Old Saturn evolution, but under quite changed conditions.

On Old Saturn, only the forces of a heat body were active within the physical human being; now the forces of the acquired gaseous body are also active within him. The latter, however, do not appear at once at the beginning of the Old Moon evolution. At that time it is as though the human being consisted only of heat substance, while within the latter the gaseous forces slumbered.

• Then comes a time when the first indications of these gaseous forces make their appearance,
• and finally, in the last period [CoF] of the Old Moon recapitulation of Old Saturn activities, the human being reappears as he was during his life-endowed state of the Old Sun.

At this time, however, all life still appears as a semblance of life.

[CoL 2 - Old Sun recapi]

Then a pause occurs similar to the short pauses occurring during the Old Sun stage, ..

.. after which the instreaming of the life body, for which the physical body has now become ripe, begins again. As in the case of the Old Saturn recapitulation, this influx takes place again in three distinctly separate periods.

During the second of these, the human being is so far adjusted to the new Old Moon conditions that the Spirits of Motion are able to employ their acquired ability. It consists in allowing the astral body to flow forth from their own essential nature into the human being.

They prepared themselves for this task during the Old Sun evolution and, during the pause between the Old Sun and Old Moon stages, they transformed what had thus been prepared into the ability alluded to above.

This influx of the astral body lasts again for a time, ..  then one of the shorter pauses ensues, ..

[CoL 3 .. note Rudolf Steiner here describes the process based on the activity of the spiritual beings which interleave (as in- and outbreathing) with what are called periods of evolution, see The two halves of an evolutionary cycle, see also Schemas]

... after which the instreaming of the astral body of the Spirits of Motion continues until the Spirits of Form begin their activity.

Because the Spirits of Motion allow their astral body to flow into the human being, he acquires his first soul qualities. As a result, he now begins to accompany the processes, which occur in him through the possession of a life body and which during the Old Sun evolution were still plant-like, with sensations and to feel pleasure and displeasure through them; this remains a changing inner ebb and flow of pleasure and displeasure, until the intervention of the Spirits of Form.

Then these changing feelings become transformed in such a way that the first traces of longing and desire appear in the human being. He seeks to repeat what has caused pleasure and strives to avoid what has caused sensations of antipathy. Since, however, the Spirits of Form do not give up their own nature to him, but only allow their forces to flow in and out of him, the impulse of desire lacks inwardness and independence. It is guided by the Spirits of Form and bears an instinctive character.

[The element of 'water']

On Old Saturn, the human physical body was composed of heat, .. which on the Old Sun was condensed to a gaseous state, or air.

During the Old Moon evolution, when the astral flows into the physical body, the latter attains a further degree of condensation at a definite time and reaches a state that may be compared with the density of a present-day fluid. This state may be called “water.” We do not mean by this, however, our present water, but any fluid form of existence.

[Human body]

The human physical body now gradually takes on a form composed of three substantial organisms. The densest is a water body. This is permeated by air currents, and all this is permeated by the activities of heat.

[Other kingdoms]

During the Old Sun stage, too, not all organisms attain their full and proper maturity. As a result, on Old Moon there are organisms that stand only at the Old Saturn stage, while others have only attained the Old Sun stage.

Because of this, two other kingdoms arise alongside the regularly developed human kingdom.

• One of these consists of beings who have remained behind at the Old Saturn stage and therefore possess only a physical body, which, even on the Old Moon, is unable to become the bearer of an independent life body. This is the lowest of the Old Moon kingdoms.
• A second kingdom consists of beings who have remained behind at the Old Sun stage and who, therefore, on the Old Moon are too immature to incorporate into themselves an independent astral body. These form a kingdom intermediate between the one just mentioned and the regularly advanced human kingdom.

[Cleavage: Sun and Old Moon bodies]

But something else takes place. The substances composed merely of the forces of heat, and those composed merely of air also permeate the human beings. Thus it happens that on the Old Moon the latter bear within themselves an Old Saturn and an Old Sun nature. As a result, a kind of cleavage arises in human nature, and through this cleavage, after the Spirits of Form begin their activity, something significant is called into existence within the Old Moon evolution. A cleavage begins in the cosmic Old Moon body.

A part of the Old Moon's substances and beings separates from the rest. Two cosmic bodies are thus formed from one.

• Certain higher beings who, prior to this, were closely linked with the unitary cosmic body, now take up their abode on one of these parts.
• The remaining part, in contrast, is occupied by the human beings, by the two lower kingdoms just characterized, and by certain higher beings who did not go over to the first cosmic body.

This latter cosmic body, occupied by higher beings, appears like a reborn, but refined Sun; ..

.. the other is now the actually new formation, the Old Moon, the third planetary embodiment of our Earth that follows after the Old Saturn and Old Sun evolutions.

The separating, reborn Sun carries away with it, from the substances arising on Old Moon, only heat and air. Besides these two substances, the liquid, watery state is to be found on what remains over as Old Moon.

[Result of separation]

The result of this separation is that the beings, departed with the reemerging Sun, are unhampered in their further development by the denser Old Moon beings. They are thus able to advance unhindered in their evolution. As a result they acquire a still greater degree of power with which to work down upon the Old Moon beings from their Sun.

These Old Moon beings likewise acquire new possibilities of evolution. The Spirits of Form, in particular, have remained united with them and have solidified the nature of passion and desire. This expresses itself gradually by a further condensation of the human physical body also. The former purely watery element of this body now takes on a viscous fluidic form, and the aeriform and heat formations condense correspondingly. Similar processes take place also in the two lower kingdoms.

[sidenote - universal principle ]

In consequence of the separation of the Old Moon from the Sun body, the former has the same relationship to the latter that the Old Saturn body once had to the entire surrounding cosmic evolution.

The Old Saturn body was formed from the body of the Thrones. From this Old Saturn substance everything was radiated back into cosmic space that the above-mentioned spiritual beings, living in the environment, experienced, and by means of the succeeding events, the reflecting radiation gradually awoke to independent life.

The whole of evolution depends first upon the severance of independent being from surrounding life; the environment then imprints itself upon this severed being as though by reflection, and then this separated entity develops further independently.

In this way the Old Moon body severed itself from the Sun body and then reflected back its life.

[What if nothing had happened?]

Had nothing else happened, the following cosmic process would have to be described.

There would be a sun body in which spiritual beings, adapted to it, would have their experiences in the heat and air element. Opposite this sun body there would be an Old Moon body in which other beings would evolve with heat, air, and water life.

The progress from the Old Sun to the Old Moon embodiment would consist in the fact that the sun beings would have their own life before them, like a reflection, mirrored back to them from the Old Moon processes, and they would be able to enjoy it — an experience that during the Old Sun stage (embodiment) was still impossible for them.

[Division into twofold life]

But the processes of evolution did not stop here. Something occurred that was of the deepest significance for all subsequent evolution. Certain beings, who were adapted to the Old Moon body, seized upon the will element — the heritage of the Thrones — that was then at their disposal, and by means of it developed their own life, which shaped itself independent of the life of the Sun. Alongside the experiences of the Old Moon, which stand only under the sun influence, other independent Old Moon experiences occur — revolts or rebellions, as it were, against the sun beings.

The various kingdoms that had come into existence on the Sun and Old Moon, especially the kingdom of our human forebears, were drawn into these conditions. Thus the Old Moon body contained within itself, spiritually and materially, a twofold life:

• one that stood in close union with the life of the sun, ..
• and one that deserted it and went its own independent way.

This division into a twofold life expresses itself in all subsequent events of the Old Moon embodiment.

[description]

What this evolutionary period presents to supersensible consciousness may be characterized in the following pictures.

The entire fundamental mass of the Old Moon is fashioned out of a half-living substance that is at times in sluggish, at times in animated movement.

[plant-minerals]

A mineral mass of rocks and earth elements, like that upon which the present human being treads, does not yet exist. We might speak of a kingdom of plant-minerals, only we must imagine that the entire foundational mass of the Old Moon is composed of this plant-mineral substance, just as the earth today consists of rocks, soil, and other matter. Just as at present we have towering masses of rocks, so at that time harder portions were embedded in the old Moon's mass. These may be compared with hard, woody structures, or with horny forms.

[plant-animal]

Just as plants spring up at present out of the mineral soil, so on the Old Moon the second kingdom — a sort of plant-animal — sprang up, covering and permeating the Old Moon ground. The substance of this kingdom was softer than the ground mass and more mobile in itself. This kingdom spread itself out over the other like a viscous sea.

[animal-man]

The human being himself may be called a kind of animal-man. His nature contained the essential elements of the other two kingdoms, but his being was completely permeated by an ether and an astral body, upon which the forces of the higher beings emanating from the severed sun were active. His form was thus ennobled.

Whereas the Spirits of Form gave him a shape through which he was adapted to Old Moon life, the Sun spirits made of him a being lifted above that life. By means of the capacities bestowed upon him by these spirits he had the power to ennoble his own nature, indeed, to lift to a higher stage that part of it that was related to the lower kingdoms.

The processes that have to be taken into consideration here, perceived spiritually, may be described in the following manner. The human forebear had been ennobled by beings who had deserted the Sun kingdom. This ennobling extended especially to everything that could be experienced in the water element. The Sun beings, who were rulers of the elements of heat and air, had less influence upon this water element, with the result that two kinds of beings were active in the organism of the human ancestor.

• One part of this organism was wholly permeated by the activities of the Sun beings;
• in the other part, the seceded Old Moon beings were active.

Through this fact, the latter part was more independent than the former.

In the Sun-part, only states of consciousness could arise in which the Sun beings lived. In the Old Moon-part there existed a sort of cosmic consciousness, similar to the Old Saturn state, only now at a higher stage. The human ancestor thus beheld himself as a copy of the cosmos, while his Sun-part felt itself only as a copy of the Sun.

These two kinds of beings began a sort of conflict within human nature, and through the influence of the Sun beings, an adjustment of this conflict was brought about by rendering the material organism, which made an independent cosmic consciousness possible, frail and perishable. It was necessary now for this part of the organism to be eliminated from time to time. During this elimination and for a certain time thereafter, the human ancestor was a being dependent only upon the influence of the sun. His consciousness became less independent; he lived in it in complete surrender to the life of the sun.

The independent Old Moon part was then renewed. After a certain length of time, this process was repeated again and again. The human ancestor on the Old Moon thus lived in alternating conditions of clearer and duller consciousness, and this alternation was accompanied by a metamorphosis of the material aspect of his being. From time to time he discarded his Old Moon body and renewed it again later.

[variation in kingdoms, and beings separating off to planets]

Seen physically, a great variation appears in the kingdoms of the Old Moon described here. The mineral-plants, the plant-animals, and the animal-men are differentiated according to groups. This will be understood if we bear in mind that, because certain organisms have remained behind at each of the earlier stages of evolution, these organisms have been embodied, endowed with the most varied qualities. There are organisms that still display the characteristics of the first epochs of the Old Saturn evolution, some those of the middle periods, and some those of its end. This is also true of all the stages of the Old Sun evolution.

[see Schema FMC00.583]

Just as organisms connected with the progressively evolving cosmic body remain behind, so is this also the case with certain beings connected with this evolution. In the progressive development up to the appearance of the Old Moon, several grades of such beings have already come into existence.

There are, for instance, archai [Spirits of Personality] who, even on the Old Sun, have not yet attained their human stage; there are, however, others who, on the Old Sun, have retrieved their failure to rise to this stage.

Many archangels [Fire Spirits], too, who should have become human on the Old Sun, have remained behind. Just as certain retarded archai withdrew during the Old Sun evolution from the body of the Old Sun and caused Saturn to arise again as a special cosmic body, so also in the course of the Old Moon evolution the beings described above withdrew to special cosmic bodies. Thus far we have spoken only of the separation into sun and Moon, but for the reasons given above, still other cosmic bodies detach themselves from the cosmic Old Moon body that made its appearance after the long pause between Old Sun and Old Moon stages. After a lapse of time there comes into existence a system of cosmic bodies, the most advanced of which, as may be easily seen, is the new sun.

• In much the same way that during the Old Sun evolution — as has already been described above — a bond of attraction was formed between the retarded Saturn kingdom and the archai on the new Saturn, now during the Old Moon evolution a bond is also formed between every such cosmic body and the corresponding Moon beings.
• It would carry us much too far to follow up in detail all the cosmic bodies that come into existence. It must suffice to have indicated the reason why a series of cosmic bodies is detached by degrees from the undivided cosmic organism that appeared in the beginning of mankind's evolution as Old Saturn.

[next CoL -> archai]

After the intervention of the Spirits of Form on the Old Moon [editor: CoL 3 (to 4)], evolution proceeds for a time in the manner described.

After this, another pause in outer activity ensues, during which the coarser parts of the three Old Moon kingdoms remain in a state of rest, but the finer parts — chiefly the human astral bodies — detach themselves from these coarser organisms. They enter a state in which the higher powers of the exalted sun beings can work upon them with special force.

After the rest period, they again permeate the parts of the human being composed of coarser substances. Through the fact that, during the pause [minor pralaya], they have absorbed powerful forces in a free state, they are able to prepare these coarser substances for the influences that the regularly advanced archai and archangels must, after a certain time, bring to bear upon them.

• These archai have attained a stage at which they possess the consciousness of inspiration. Not only are they able to perceive the inner state of other beings in pictures — as was the case in their former picture consciousness — but they are able to perceive the inner nature of these beings as a spiritual tone language.
• The archangels (Spirits of Fire), however, have risen to the degree of consciousness possessed by the archai on Old Sun.

As a result, both kinds of spirits are able to intervene in the matured life of the human being.

The archai work upon his astral body, the archangels upon his ether body.

The astral body thus receives the character of personality. It experiences henceforth not only pleasure and pain within itself, but it relates them to itself. It has not yet attained a full I consciousness that says to itself, “I exist,” but it feels itself borne and sheltered by other beings in its environment. Looking up to them, as it were, it can say, “This, my environment, gives me existence.”

The archangels work henceforth upon the ether body. Under their influence the movement of forces in this body becomes more and more an inner life activity. What thus comes into existence finds physical expression in a circulation of fluids and in phenomena of growth.

[nutrition and respiration - unique description]

The gaseous substances have condensed to a fluid. We can speak of a kind of nutrition in the sense that what is absorbed from without is transformed and worked over within. If we think perhaps of something midway between nutrition and breathing in the present day sense, then we shall have some idea of what happened at that time in this respect.

The human being drew nutritive substances from the kingdom of the animal-plants.

These animal-plants must be thought of as floating, swimming in — or even lightly attached to — a surrounding element in much the same way the present-day lower animals live in water or the land animals in the air. This element, however, is neither water nor air in the present sense of the word, but something midway between the two — a kind of thick vapor in which the most varied substances, as though dissolved, move hither and thither in the most varied currents. The animal-plants appear only as condensed, regular forms of this element, often differing physically very little from their environment.

The process of respiration exists alongside the process of nutrition. It is not like what occurs on earth, but it is like an insucking and outpouring of heat. For supersensible observation it is as though, during these processes, organs opened and closed through which a warming stream flowed in and out. Through these organs the airy and watery substances are also drawn in and expelled, and because the human being at this stage of his evolution already possesses an astral body, this breathing and nutrition are accompanied by feelings, so that a kind of pleasure occurs when substances that are beneficial for the building up of the human being are drawn in from outside. Displeasure is excited when injurious substances flow in or even when they only approach the human being.

During the Old Moon evolution there was a kinship between the processes of breathing and nutrition, as described.

[visualization and reproduction]

Similarly the process of visualization was in close correspondence with the process of reproduction.

[description of image or picture consciousness CoC=3]

Objects and beings in the environment of the humanity of the Old Moon did not produce immediate effects on any kind of senses. Visualization was of such a character that images were evoked in the dull dim consciousness by the presence of the things and beings in its neighborhood. These pictures had a much more intimate relationship with the actual nature of the environment than present-day sense perceptions which, through color, tone, and odor, only indicate the external aspects of things and beings.

In order to have a clearer concept of this consciousness of the Old Moon humanity, let us imagine

• this humanity as being embedded in the above described vaporous environment.
• The most manifold processes occur within this mistlike element. Substances now unite, now separate. Certain parts condense, others become rarefied.
• All of this occurs in such a way that the human beings neither see nor hear it directly, but images are called forth by it in their consciousness. These may be compared to the images of present-day dream consciousness.

[example]

For example, when an outer object falls to the ground and a sleeping man does not perceive the actual event itself, but instead experiences the rise of some kind of picture, he might, let us say, believe a shot was fired. The only difference is that the pictures of the Old Moon consciousness are not arbitrary as are the dream pictures of the present day. Although they are symbols, not copies, they correspond, nevertheless, to the outer events. A definite picture appears with a definite outer event.

Old Moon humanity is thus in the position to direct its actions in accordance with these pictures, just as present-day humanity directs its actions according to its perceptions. Notice, however, must be taken of the fact that conduct based on perception admits of freedom of choice, while action under the influence of the pictures indicated is impelled by a dull urge.

This picture consciousness is by no means one by which only outer physical processes are visualized, but through them the spiritual beings ruling behind the physical facts as well as their activities are imaginatively perceived.

Thus

• the archai become, as it were, visible in the objects of the animal-plant kingdom;
• behind and within the mineral-plant beings the archangels appear.
• The angels appear as beings that the human being is able to picture mentally without connection with anything physical; he perceives them, as it were, as etheric soul forms.

Although these mental pictures of the Old Moon consciousness were not copies, but only symbols of the outer world, they did have a much more important effect upon the inner nature of the human being than the present visualizations of man transmitted through outer perception. They had the power to set the whole inner being in motion and activity. The inner processes shaped themselves in accordance with them. They were genuine formative forces. The human being took on the shape these formative forces gave him; he became, as it were, a copy of his processes of consciousness.

[CoL 5 - next phase after pralaya]

The further that evolution continues in this manner, the deeper and more incisive is the change that in consequence takes place in the human entity. The power that proceeds from these consciousness-images is gradually no longer able to extend over the entire human corporeality. The latter divides into two parts, two natures.

• Members are fashioned that are subject to the formative effect of the picture consciousness, and to a great degree they become a copy of the life of mental images in the sense of the above description.
• Other organs, however, withdraw from this influence.

The human being, in one part of his nature is, as it were, too dense, too much determined by other laws to be able to conduct himself according to the consciousness-pictures. These withdraw from human influence, but they become subject to the influence of the exalted sun beings themselves.

A rest period precedes this stage of evolution, during which the sun spirits gather the power to work upon the Old Moon beings under wholly new conditions.

After this pause the human being is distinctly split into two natures.

• One of these natures, not subject to the independent activity of the picture consciousness, takes on a more definite form and comes under the influence of forces that, to be sure, proceed from the Old Moon body, but within which they arise only through the influence of the sun beings. This part of the human being participates increasingly in the life that is inspired by the sun.
• The other part rises out of the former like a kind of head. It is in itself mobile, plastic, and becomes the expression and bearer of the dull life of consciousness of the human being.

Yet the two parts are closely bound together. They send their fluids into one another, and their members stretch from one into the other.

[solar system coordination]

A significant harmony is now achieved through the fact that, during the time in which all this happened, a relationship between sun and Old Moon has been developed that is in accord with the direction of this evolution.

It has already been pointed out in a previous paragraph how, as a result of their stage of evolution, the advancing beings sever their cosmic bodies from the general cosmic mass. They radiate the forces in accordance with which the substances form themselves.

Sun and Old Moon have thus separated from one another in accordance with the necessity of establishing proper dwelling places for the corresponding beings.

This conditioning of substance and its forces by means of the spirit, however, extends further. The beings themselves determine certain movements of cosmic bodies and their definite revolution around each other. In this way these bodies come into varying positions in, relation to each other. If the location or position of one cosmic body in relation to another is changed, then the effects of their corresponding beings upon one another are also changed.

This happened with the sun and Old Moon. Through the movement begun by the Old Moon around the sun, the human beings come now under the influence of the sun activity, now they turn away from this influence and are then more dependent upon themselves. The movement is a result of the secession of certain Old Moon beings already described and the adjustment of the conflict brought about by it. It is only the physical expression of the spiritual relationship of forces created by this secession. The revolution of one body around the other resulted in the previously described changing states of consciousness in the beings dwelling on the cosmic bodies.

It can be said that Old Moon alternately turns its life toward and away from the sun. There is a sun period and an Old Moon period; during the latter, the Old Moon beings develop on the side of the Old Moon that is turned away from the sun.

For Old Moon, however, something else was added to the movement of the heavenly bodies. The retrospective supersensible consciousness is able to see how the Old Moon beings themselves revolve around their own cosmic body in quite regular periods. At certain times they seek out the places where they can expose themselves to the influence of the sun. At other epochs they migrate to the regions where they are not exposed to this influence and where they can, as it were, reflect upon themselves.

[angels reach CoC=4 level human stage]

In order to complete the picture of these processes, we have also to consider that at this time the angels reach their human stage.

The human being on the Old Moon cannot yet use his senses, the primal indications of which had come into existence already on Old Saturn, for his own perception of external objects. At the Old Moon stage of evolution, however, these senses become the instruments of the angels. The latter make use of these senses in order to perceive by means of them. These senses, which belong to the physical human body, enter in this way into reciprocal relationship with the angels, who not only make use of them, but perfect them as well.

[influence of Sun - two states of consciousness alternating]

Through the changing relationships to the sun a change occurs, as described, in the conditions of life within the human being himself. Things shape themselves in such a way that each time the human being comes under the influence of the sun, he devotes himself more to the life of the sun and its phenomena than to himself. At such times he experiences the grandeur and majesty of the universe as this is expressed in the sun existence. He absorbs this.

The exalted beings who have their habitation upon the sun exercise their power upon Old Moon, which in turn has its effect upon the being of man. This effect does not extend to the entire human being; it affects particularly those parts of him that have withdrawn from the influence of his own picture consciousness. Thus the physical and ether bodies especially attain a certain size and form, but in order that this may occur, the phenomena of consciousness withdraw.

When, now, the life of the human being is removed from the influence of the sun, he is occupied with his own nature. An inner vivacity begins chiefly in the astral body, but the external shape becomes less conspicuous, less perfect in form.

Thus during Old Moon evolution there are these two clearly distinguishable, alternating states of consciousness

• a duller state during the sun period ... The first state is, indeed duller, but it is for that reason also more selfless. Man surrenders himself more to the outer world, to the universe mirrored in the sun.
• and a clearer state during the period in which life is more dependent upon itself.

.

There is an alternation in the states of consciousness that may be compared with the alternation of sleeping and waking in the present human being, as well as with his life between birth and death on the one hand, and with the more spiritual existence between death and a new birth, on the other.

• The awakening on Old Moon, when the sun period gradually ceases, should be characterized as a state intermediate between our present waking every morning and our being born.
• Likewise, the gradual dimming of consciousness at the approach of the sun period may be likened to an intermediate state between going to sleep and dying, for a consciousness of birth and death similar to the one belonging to present-day man did not yet exist on Old Moon. In a kind of sun-life the human being surrendered himself to the enjoyment of this life. He was, during this time, withdrawn from his own life. He lived more spiritually.

Only an approximate and comparative description of what the human entity experienced in these periods can be attempted.

• He felt as though the causative forces of the cosmos streamed into him, pulsated through him. He felt as though intoxicated with the harmonies of the universe of which he partook. At such times his astral body was as though freed from the physical body, and a part of the life body was likewise withdrawn from it. This organism composed of astral body and life body was like a marvelous, delicate musical instrument upon whose strings the mysteries of the universe resounded, and the members of that part of the human being upon which consciousness had but little influence took on forms in response to the universal harmonies, for in these harmonies the sun beings were active. Thus, through spiritual cosmic tones this human part was given form.

The alternation between the brighter state of consciousness and this duller one during the sun period was not as abrupt as is the alternation between waking and a completely dreamless sleep for man today.

The picture consciousness, to be sure, was not as clear as the present waking consciousness; the other consciousness, in turn, was not as dull as the dreamless sleep of today.

Thus the human being had a vague notion of the play of universal harmonies in his physical body and in that part of the ether body that had remained united with it.

• At the time during which the sun was not shining, as it were, for the human being, the imaginative thought pictures pervaded his consciousness instead of harmonies. Especially those members of the physical and ether bodies that were under the direct power of consciousness were then vivified. In contrast, however, the other parts of the human being, upon which the formative forces from the sun now had no influence, passed through a kind of hardening and drying out process.
• When the sun period again drew near, these old bodies disintegrated; they severed themselves from the human being and then, as though from the grave of his old corporeality, he arose, inwardly newly formed, although he was still insignificant in this new shape. A renewal of the life-processes had taken place.

Through the activity of the sun beings and their harmonies the new-born body again reached its perfection and the process described above repeated itself. Man experienced this renewal as the donning of a new garment. The kernel of his being had not passed through an actual birth or death, it only had shed its skin, as it were, by passing over from a spiritual tone-consciousness in which it yielded itself up to the external world, to one in which it was turned more toward the inner life. The old body had become unusable; it was cast off and then renewed.

This characterizes more exactly what was described above as a kind of reproduction, and of which it was said that it is closely related to visualizing activity. The human being has generated his kind with respect to certain parts of the physical and ether bodies. Yet there is no engendering of a daughter being completely distinguished from its parent, but the essential kernel of the latter passes over into the former. This kernel does not produce a new being, but brings itself forth in a new form.

[recap summary -> relation animal-man to angel]

Thus the Old Moon human being experiences a change of consciousness.

• When the sun epoch approaches, his visualizations become duller and duller, and a state of blissful surrender pervades him. Within his quiet inner being resound cosmic harmonies.
• Toward the end of this period the images in the astral body begin to revive. Man begins to feel and experience himself. He experiences something like an awakening from the blissfulness and quiet into which he was immersed during the sun period.

In this connection yet another important experience occurs.

With the new awakening of the picture consciousness, the individual man perceives himself as though enveloped in a cloud that had descended upon him like a being from the cosmos. He feels this being as something belonging to him, as a completion of his own nature. He feels it as something that gives him his own existence; he feels it as his I.

This being is one of the angels [Sons of Life]. He feels toward this being somewhat as follows, “I lived in this being even during the sun period of the Old Moon when I had surrendered myself to the glory of the cosmos, but at that time it was invisible to me. Now, however, it becomes visible to me.”

[group souls]

It is also from this same angel that the power proceeds that produces the activity performed by man upon his own bodily nature during the sunless period. Then when the sun period again approaches, man feels as if he himself became one with the angel. Even though he may not behold him, nevertheless he feels himself intimately united with the angel.

The relationship to the angels was of such a character that not each individual human being had an angel for himself, but a whole group of human beings felt that one of these beings belonged to it.

Thus on the Old Moon the inhabitants lived divided into such groups, and every group looked up to an angel as the common group I.

The difference between the groups became apparent through each group having a different form, especially in its ether bodies. But since the physical bodies are formed in accordance with the ether bodies, the differences in the latter were imprinted upon the former, and the various human groups appeared as so many different types of men.

When the angels looked down upon the human groups belonging to them, they saw themselves, as it were, manifolded in the individual human beings. In this way they experienced their own I-hood. They mirrored themselves in the human beings. This was also the task of the human senses at that time. We have seen that these did not yet transmit any external objective perceptions. But they reflected the being of the angels. What these angels perceived through this reflection gave to them their I consciousness. It was, however, the images of the dull, vague Old Moon consciousness that were aroused in the human astral body by this reflection.

The effect of this activity of man, achieved in reciprocal relationship with the angels, brought into existence the first traces of the nervous system in the physical body. The nerves represent a sort of extension of the senses into the inner nature of the human body.

[recap workings H3]

From this description it can be seen how the three categories of spirits, the archai, the archangels, and the angels are active upon the Old Moon man.

• If the main period of the Old Moon evolution — the middle evolutionary period — is considered, we may say that it was then that the archai implanted independence, the character of personality in the human astral body. It is due to this fact that during the time when the sun does not shine on the human being, as it were, he can turn in upon himself, is able to fashion himself.
• The archangels manifest themselves in the ether body to the degree that this body imprints upon itself the independent human structure. It is because of them that the human being feels himself to be again the same being each time after the renewal of his body. A kind of memory is thus given to the ether body through the archangels.
• The angels work upon the physical body in such a way that it is able to become the expression of the now independent astral body. They thus make it possible for this physical body to become a physiognomic copy of its astral body.

On the other hand, higher spiritual beings, especially the Spirits of Form and the Spirits of Movement, intervene in the formation of physical and ether bodies insofar as these develop in the sun periods independent of the autonomous astral body. It is from the sun that their intervention occurs in the manner described above.

[higher triad]

Under the influence of such facts the human being gradually matures in order to develop in itself the germ of spirit-self, just as in the second half of the Old Saturn evolution the human being developed the germ of spirit-man, and on the Old Sun the germ of life-spirit.

Through this, all relationships on the Old Moon change. Through the successive changes and renewals human beings have become ever more noble and delicate. They have also gained in strength. As a result, the picture consciousness was increasingly preserved also during the sun cycles. In this way it acquires an influence over the formation of the physical and ether bodies that formerly happened only through the activity of the sun beings. What happened on the Old Moon through the human beings and the spirits united with them became more and more like the former achievements of the sun with its higher beings. As a result, these sun beings could increasingly apply their forces for the sake of their own evolution and because of this the Old Moon became ready, after a certain length of time, to be reunited with the sun.

Spiritually perceived, these processes appear as follows.

The revolting Moon beings have been gradually overcome by the sun beings and must now adjust themselves by becoming subject to them, so that the functions of both are in mutual harmony.

This happened only after long preceding epochs in which the Old Moon cycles became shorter and shorter and the sun cycles longer and longer. A cycle of evolution now begins during which sun and Moon are again a single cosmic organism. At this time the physical human body has become wholly etheric.

When this is said, it must not be imagined that under such conditions we cannot speak of a physical body. What has been formed as physical body during the Old Saturn, Old Sun, and Old Moon evolutions still remains present. It is important to recognize the physical not only where it manifests outwardly physically. The physical can also be present in such a way that it can show externally the form of the etheric, and indeed, even show the form of the astral. It is important to differentiate between external appearances and inner laws.

A physical body can become etherized or astralized, yet at the same time retain its physical laws. This is the case when the human physical body on the Old Moon has reached a certain degree of perfection. It becomes ether-like. When, however, supersensible consciousness — able to observe things of this kind — turns its attention to such an ether-like body, it appears to it permeated not by the laws of the etheric but by the laws of the physical. The physical is taken up into the etheric in order to rest there and be fostered as in a maternal womb. Later it appears again in physical form but at a higher stage.

Were the human Old Moon being to keep its physical body in the grossly physical form, the Old Moon would never be able to reunite itself with the sun. By the acquisition of an etheric form, the physical body becomes more related to the ether body and it can, moreover, be permeated again more inwardly by those parts of the ether and astral bodies that, during the sun periods of the Old Moon evolution, had to withdraw from it.

The human entity, which appeared like a double being during the separation of sun and Moon, becomes again a unified being. The physical becomes more soul-like, and the soul in turn more closely united with the physical.

The sun spirits, into whose direct sphere this unitary human being has now come, are able to work upon him quite differently from the time when they worked from without, downward upon the Old Moon. The human being is now more in a soul and spirit environment.

• Through this fact the Spirits of Wisdom can achieve a significant effect. They imprint wisdom in him. They ensoul him with wisdom. He becomes in this way in a certain sense an independent soul.
• To the influence of these beings is added that of the Spirits of Motion. They act especially upon the astral body in such a way that, under the influence of the beings described, it evolves a soul activity and a life of ether body filled with wisdom.

.

• The wisdom-filled ether body is the first germinal nucleus of what has been described in an earlier chapter as the intellectual soul in present-day humanity, whereas
• the astral body stimulated by the Spirits of Motion contains the germinal nucleus of the sentient soul.

Because all this is brought about within the human entity in its increased state of independence, these germinal nuclei of the intellectual and sentient souls appear as the expression of spirit self. The mistake must not be made of thinking that, at this period of evolution, spirit self is something special, independent of the intellectual and sentient souls. These latter are only the expression of spirit self that signifies their higher unity and harmony.

[work of the SoW - Cosmos of Wisdom]

It is of special significance that during this period the Spirits of Wisdom intervene in the manner described. They do this not alone in respect of the human being but also of the other kingdoms that have developed upon the Old Moon.

When the sun and Old Moon again become united, these lower kingdoms are drawn within the sphere of the sun. All that was physical in them becomes etherized. Thus, just as human beings are to be found on the sun, so there are also to be found mineral-plants and plant-animals. These other creatures, however, remain endowed with their own laws. They feel, therefore, like strangers in their new surroundings. They appear with a nature that has little in common with that of their environment. But since they have an etheric form, the activity of the Spirits of Wisdom can extend to them also.

All that has come from the Old Moon into the sun is now permeated with the forces of the Spirits of Wisdom. Therefore what is fashioned from the sun-Old Moon organism within this evolutionary period may be called the 'Cosmos of Wisdom.'

When our Earth system, as a descendant of this Cosmos of Wisdom, appears after a rest period, all the beings coming to life again upon the Earth, springing forth from their Old Moon nuclei, show themselves filled with wisdom.

Thus we see the reason why the present earth man, looking attentively at the things about him, can discover wisdom in the nature of their being. We can marvel at the wisdom in each plant leaf, in each animal and human bone, in the miraculous structure of the brain and heart. When man needs wisdom in order to understand things, that is, when he extracts wisdom from them, it shows that wisdom exists in the things themselves. For however much the human being might try to understand the things by means of ideas filled with wisdom, he would be unable to extract any wisdom from them were it not already embodied in the things themselves. Anyone who wishes by means of wisdom to comprehend things that, as he thinks, have not first received wisdom, may also imagine that he can take water out of a glass into which none has previously been poured. The Earth, as will be seen later on in this book, is the resurrected Old Moon. It appears as a wisdom-filled organism because in the epoch described it has become permeated by the forces of the Spirits of Wisdom.

[process note]

It will, it is hoped, appear comprehensible that in this description of the Old Moon conditions only certain transitory forms of evolution could be concentrated upon. Certain things in the progress of events had to be selected and emphasized for the description. This kind of description offers, to be sure, only single pictures, and the preceding descriptions of evolution may therefore seem lacking through not being woven into a web of definitely fixed concepts. In regard to such an objection attention may perhaps be drawn to the fact that the description has intentionally been given in less concise concepts. For it is not so much a question here of the construction of speculative concepts and ideas, but rather of a mental picture of what can present itself to the spiritual eye through supersensible perception directed to these facts. These facts do not appear in such sharp and definite outlines in the Old Moon evolution as is the case with the perceptions on our earth. In the Old Moon stage we are concerned with vacillating, changing impressions, with fluctuating, mobile pictures, and with their transitions. Besides this, we must consider the fact that we are concerned with an evolution covering long, long periods of time and that in describing this, only momentary pictures can be seized on and fixed.

[review the whole - in overview]

At the point of time when the astral body implanted in the human being has advanced him so far in his evolution that his physical body gives the angels the possibility of attaining their human stage, the actual climax of the Old Moon stage is reached. At that time the human being also has attained all that this epoch can give him for his inner development on the forward path.

The following cycle, that is, the second part of the Old Moon evolution, can be designated as one of ebb-tide. But it can be seen that with respect to the human environment and also to man himself something most important transpires just at this period. It is then that wisdom is implanted within the sun-Old Moon body. We have seen that during this ebb-tide the nuclei of the intellectual and sentient souls are engendered.

Yet it is not until the Earth period that their unfolding and that of the consciousness soul occurs together with the birth of the I, of independent self-consciousness. At the Old Moon stage, the intellectual and sentient souls do not yet appear as though the human being himself were able to express himself through them, but as though they were instruments for the angels belonging to the human being. If we wish to characterize the feeling that man had on Old Moon in regard to this, we would have to say that he felt as follows. “The angel lives in and through me; he beholds the Moon environment through me; he thinks in me about the things and beings in this environment.”

The Old Moon man feels overshadowed by his angel, he experiences himself as the instrument of this higher being, and during the separation of sun and Old Moon, when Old Moon was turned away from the sun, he had a feeling of greater independence. At the same time he also felt as if the I belonging to him, which had disappeared from his picture-consciousness during the sun cycles, now became visible to him. This was for the Old Moon human being what we might call alternation in the states of consciousness. This gave him the feeling, “In the sun period my I soars away with me up into higher regions to sublime beings, and, when the sun disappears, it descends with me into lower worlds.”

[seven CoL]

A preparatory period preceded the actual Old Moon evolution. A kind of repetition of the Old Saturn and Old Sun evolution occurred at that time.

Then, after the reunion of the sun and Moon in the ebb-tide period, two epochs can likewise be distinguished during which there take place, to a certain degree, even physical condensations. The psycho-spiritual states of the sun-Moon organism alternate with physical states. In these physical epochs the human beings, and likewise the beings of the lower kingdoms, appear in stiff forms, lacking independence, forms that were forecasts of what they were to become as more independent shapes later on in the Earth evolution.

Thus we can speak of two preparatory periods of the Old Moon evolution and of two others during the time of ebb-tide. Such epochs can be called cycles. In what follows the two preparatory cycles, and that precedes the two cycles of ebb-tide — that is, in the time of the Moon separation — three periods can also be distinguished.

• It is in the middle period of these three that the angels reach their human status.
• Prior to this there is an period during which all conditions lead to a concentration on achieving this main event.
• Then another period follows that can be described as a condition in which the beings become familiar with and develop the new creations.

Thus the middle period of the Moon evolution is divided into three periods. Together with the two preparatory and the two ebb-tide epochs, they make seven Old Moon cycles. It may thus be said that the entire Old Moon evolution runs its course in seven cycles.

Between these cycles lie rest periods that have been mentioned previously. We shall arrive at a true conception of the situation only if we do not imagine abrupt transitions between periods of activity and those of rest. The sun beings, for example, withdraw, little by little, from their activity on the Old Moon. A time begins for them that, outwardly observed, appears like their period of rest, while upon the Old Moon itself, animated, independent activity reigns. Thus the period of activity of one kind of being extends into the rest period of other beings. If we take these things into account we can speak of a rhythmic rising and falling of forces in cycles. Indeed, similar divisions can also be observed within the seven Old Moon cycles described.

We can then call

• the whole Moon evolution a great cycle, a planetary cycle;
• the seven divisions within one of these cycles, small cycles,
• and the divisions of these last again still smaller sub-cycles.

This membering into seven times seven sections is already observable in the Old Sun evolution and is indicated also during the Old Saturn epoch. Yet we must consider the boundaries between the divisions as being blurred on the Old Sun and as being still more vague on Old Saturn. The boundary lines become more and more clearly defined the farther evolution proceeds toward Earth.

1910-01-15-GA117a

freely rephrased: The catastrophe that ended Old Moon killed all its inhabitants through a cyan compound (‘verbindung’), through prussic acid or cyanide (‘blausäure’) that those beings breathed.

1910-08-23-GA122

describes Old Moon and the work of the SoF, as compared to Earth. The activation of the human organs, providing the eye with inner life.

The Sun separated off for the first time during the Old Moon evolution. It was then that the light was for the first time active from without, but not then as light.

see full relevant lecture extract here: The eye is formed by the light for the light#1910-08-23-GA122

1911-06-07-GA015

Spiritual science teaches us that before becoming the Earth as we know it today, the earth passed through an earlier planetary state or condition called the Old Moon stage. During this Old Moon stage, human beings were not yet human in our sense of the word. Nevertheless, there were other beings on Old Moon who had evolved to the same level as humans have now reached on the Earth, though they looked very different from us. In other words, on Old Moon, which perished and later developed into our Earth, there were beings we can consider as our forerunners. In Christian esotericism these beings are called angels, while those beings above them, who reached the human stage of their development even earlier than the angels, are called archangels.

The angels, known as dhyanic beings or dhyani in oriental mysticism, reached the human level of their development during the Old Moon stage. Consequently, if they completed their evolution on the Old Moon, they are now one level above us. At the end of earthly evolution, we will arrive at the level they reached at the end of the Moon stage.

When the earth state of our planet began and human beings appeared on it, the angels could not manifest in outer human form because the human flesh body is essentially an earthly product appropriate only for beings now at the human stage of development. Since the angels are a level above the human, they could not incarnate in human bodies; they could participate in the government of the earth only by enlightening and inspiring human beings who had achieved a state of clairvoyance. These higher, angelic beings used clairvoyant individuals to intervene in the guidance of the earth's destiny. Thus the ancient Egyptians still remembered a time when their leaders were vividly conscious of their connection with these higher beings, called variously gods, angels, or dhyanic beings. These beings who influenced humanity without incarnating in human bodies, without taking on fleshly human form, were our forerunners; they had already outgrown the level of development we have reached only now.

The word “superhuman” ³ is often misused these days, but in this case we can use it correctly and apply it to those beings who had already achieved the human level of development during the moon period — the planetary stage preliminary to our earth — and have now grown beyond it. Such beings could appear on earth only in an etheric body and thus could be perceived only by clairvoyant individuals. ⁴ That is how they came down to earth from the spiritual worlds and ruled on the earth even in post-Atlantean times. ⁵

These beings had the remarkable characteristic indeed — they still have it today — that they did not need to think. In fact, it may be said that they cannot think at all the way we do. After all, how do we think? Well, usually we start from a particular point, and once we have understood it, we try to comprehend other things on the basis of this understanding. If our thinking did not follow this pattern, many people would have an easier time learning in school. Mathematics, for example, cannot be learned in a day because we must begin at one point and proceed slowly from there. This takes a long time. An entire world of ideas cannot be taken in at a glance because human thinking takes its course over time. A complex thought structure cannot be present in the mind all at once; rather, we must make an effort to follow it step by step.

The higher beings I have described are not encumbered by this peculiar characteristic of human thinking. Instead, they realize an extensive train of thought as quickly as animals know to grab something the moment their instinct tells them it is edible. In higher beings, then, instinct and reflective consciousness are one and the same. What instincts are for animals at their evolutionary level, in their kingdom, direct spiritual thinking, or direct spiritual conceptualization, is for these dhyanic beings or angels. And this instinctive, conceptualizing inner life is what makes these higher beings so essentially different from us.

Obviously, the angeloi cannot possibly use the kind of brain or physical body we have. They must use an etheric body because the human body and brain can process thoughts only over time. The angeloi do not form their thoughts over time; they feel their wisdom flash up in them by itself, as it were. They cannot possibly make mistakes in their thinking the way we can. Their thinking is a direct inspiration. The individuals who were able to approach these superhuman or angelic beings were therefore aware of being in the presence of sure and reliable wisdom.

In ancient Egypt, then, those who were teachers or rulers knew that the commandments which their spiritual guides gave them and the truths they uttered were immediately right and could not be wrong. And the people to whom these truths were then imparted felt the same way. The clairvoyant leaders of ancient times could speak in such a way that the people believed that their words came from the spiritual world. In short, there was a direct current flowing down from the higher, guiding spiritual hierarchies.

Thus, the next higher world of the spiritual hierarchies guides the entire evolution of humanity; it works both on the individual in childhood and on humanity as a whole. The angeloi or superhuman beings of this realm are one level above us and reach directly up into the spiritual spheres. From these spheres they bring to earth what works into human culture. In the individual, this higher wisdom leaves its imprint on the formation of the body during childhood, and it formed the culture of ancient humanity in a similar way.

This is how the Egyptians, who reported that they were in contact with the divine realm, experienced the openness of the human soul to the spiritual hierarchies. Just as the child's soul opens its aura to the hierarchies until the moment indicated in the previous lecture, so, through its work, humanity as a whole opened its world to the hierarchies with which it was connected.

This connection to the higher hierarchies was particularly significant in the case of the holy teachers of India. These were the great teachers of the first post-Atlantean epoch, of the first Indian culture that spread in the south of Asia. After the end of the Atlantean catastrophe, when the physiognomy of the earth had changed and Asia, Europe, and Africa had developed in the eastern hemisphere in their new form, but before the time documented in ancient records, the culture of the ancient teachers of India flourished.

People today generally have a completely false picture of these great Indian teachers. If, for example, an educated person of our time were to meet one of the great teachers of India, he or she would look puzzled and probably say, “This is supposed to be a wise man? That is not how I imagined a wise man.” According to our current definition of the terms “clever” and “intelligent,” the ancient holy teachers of India would not have been able to say anything intelligent. By today's standards, these teachers were simple and very plain people who would have given the simplest answers to questions, even to questions pertaining to everyday life. Often, it was scarcely possible to elicit anything from them other than some sparse utterance that would seem quite insignificant to the educated classes of our day.

However, at certain times, these holy teachers proved to be more than merely simple people. At these times they had to gather in groups of seven, because what each could sense individually had to harmonize as if in a seven-tone harmony with what the other six experienced. Each wise man was able to perceive this or that, depending on his particular faculties and development. And out of the harmony of the individual perceptions of these seven individuals, there emerged the primeval wisdom that resounds through ancient times. Its reverberation can be heard even today if we decipher the occult records correctly. The records I am referring to are not the revelations of the Vedas, though the Vedas are certainly marvelous in their own right. ⁶ The teachings of these holy men of ancient India precede the writing of the Vedas by a long time. The Vedas, those tremendous works, are only a faint echo of those earlier teachings.

When these wise teachers faced one of the angeloi or superhuman forerunners of humanity, and looked clairvoyantly into the higher worlds, listening all the while clairaudiently to this being, their eyes shone like the sun. And what they were able to impart then had an awe inspiring effect on the people around them; all who heard them knew that they were not speaking out of human wisdom or human experience, but that gods, superhuman beings, were intervening in human culture.

The ancient cultures originated from this influx of divine wisdom. The gate to the divine-spiritual world was completely open for the human soul during Atlantean times. In the course of the post-Atlantean periods, however, gradually the gate closed. Little by little, people in many countries felt that human beings had to rely more and more on themselves. Here we can see again that the development of humanity as a whole parallels that of the child. At first the divine-spiritual world still extends into the child's unconscious soul, which is active in the formation of the body. Then comes the moment when each person begins to perceive himself or herself as an I, the first moment one can remember. Before this lies a time we cannot in any ordinary way usually recall. This is why it is said that even the wisest among us can still learn something from the soul of the child as it is in the time before memory develops. Thereafter, the individual is left to his or her own devices; I-consciousness appears, and we become able to remember our experiences.

In the same way there came a time when nations began to feel themselves cut off from the divine inspiration of their forefathers. For just as we are separated more and more from the aura guiding us during our early childhood years, so in the life of nations the divine forebearers gradually and increasingly withdrew. As a result, human beings were left to their own research and their own knowledge. In historical records that describe this development, we can feel the intervention of the guides of humanity.

The ancient Egyptians called the first founder of culture, who was human rather than divine, “Menes.” And they dated the human possibility of error from the same moment, because from then on human beings had to rely on the instrument of the brain. The ancient Orientals likewise gave the name “Manes” to the human being as thinker and called the first bearer of human thinking “Manu.” The Greeks called the first developer of the principle of human thought “Minos” with whom the legend of the labyrinth is associated. The fact that human I beings can fall into error is symbolized by the labyrinth. Labyrinths were first built at the time when the gods withdrew from human beings. They are, of course, images of the convolutions of the brain, in which the thinker can get lost. At the time of Minos people sensed that they had gradually moved away from being guided directly by the gods and were developing a new form of guidance in which the I experienced the influence of the higher spiritual world.

To summarize: Besides the forerunners of the human race, who completed their human stage on the Moon and have now become angels, there are other beings who did not complete their development at that time. While the angeloi or dhyanic beings advanced one level above ours at the moment when human evolution began on earth, these other beings, like the higher categories of luciferic beings, did not complete their human evolution on the old Moon, and thus remain somehow incomplete.

Thus when the earthly condition of our planet began these early human beings were not alone; they received inspiration from divine-spiritual beings. Without their inspiration, like children without guidance, these early human beings would have been unable to progress. Therefore the beings who had completed their evolution on the old Moon were indirectly present on the earth with them. Between these angelic beings and early, childlike humankind, however, there lived beings who had not completed their evolution on the old Moon. These beings, of course, were on a higher level than we are because they could have become angels during the old Moon period. But they had not reached full maturity then and thus remained below the angels, although they are still far superior to us in terms of typically human attributes. Indeed, these beings who stand between us and the angels occupy the lowest level among the multitudes of luciferic spirits — the realm of the luciferic beings begins with them.

It is extraordinarily easy to misunderstand these beings. We could ask why the divine spirits, the rulers of the good, permitted such beings to remain behind, thus allowing the luciferic principle to enter humanity. While we may object that the good gods will certainly turn everything to the good, this question nevertheless suggests itself. Another misunderstanding arises if we consider these beings as simply “evil.” To think that these beings are “evil,” however, is to misunderstand them because, although they are the source of evil in human evolution, they are not “evil” at all. Rather, they just stand midway between us and the superhuman beings. In a certain way, indeed, these beings are more perfect than we are. They have already achieved a high level of mastery in all the capacities we still have to acquire. At the same time, unlike the angelic forerunners of the human race, these luciferic beings, because they did not complete their human stage of development on the old Moon, are still able to incarnate in human bodies during earthly evolution. The angeloi, on the other hand, the great inspirers of humanity upon whom the ancient Egyptians still relied, cannot appear in human bodies but can only reveal themselves through human beings. Thus, in the remote past, besides human beings and angels, there existed beings who were neither angels nor humans and were able to incarnate in human bodies. Indeed, in Lemurian and Atlantean times a number of individuals bore such “retarded” angelic beings within them as their innermost core. During those periods ordinary human beings, who were to develop through successive incarnations to an appropriate level of the human ideal, coexisted with beings who looked outwardly like ordinary people. These luciferic beings had to clothe themselves in human bodies because earthly conditions require the outward form of a physical body. Thus, particularly in ancient times, humanity lived side by side with these other beings who belong to the lowest category of luciferic individualities.

While the angels worked on human culture through human individuals, the luciferic beings incarnated and founded cultures in various places. The legends of ancient peoples often talk about great persons who established cultures in this or that particular place. These were embodied luciferic beings. However, it would be wrong to assume that because such an individual was an incarnation of a luciferic being he or she was therefore necessarily evil. In fact, human culture has received countless blessings from these beings.

According to spiritual science, in ancient times, specifically in the Atlantean period, there existed a kind of human primal or root language that was the same over all the earth because speech in those times came much more out of the innermost core of the soul than it does today. The following will make this clear. In Atlantean times people experienced outer impressions in such a way that to give expression to something external the soul was compelled to use a consonant. Thus, what was present in space — the universe and everything in it — induced people to imitate everything around them with consonants. People felt the wind blowing, the sound of waves, the shelter a house provides, and imitated these experiences by means of consonants. On the other hand, people's inner experiences, such as pain or joy, were imitated by vowels. Thus, one can see that in speech the soul became one with external events or beings.

The Akashic chronicle reveals, for example, that when people in the past approached a hut arching over a family, sheltering and protecting the people, they observed primarily its shape curving around the inhabitants. ⁷ This protective curving of the hut was expressed through a consonant, but the fact that there were ensouled bodies in the hut — people could feel this sympathetically was expressed through a vowel. Gradually, the concept of protection emerged: “I have protection, protection for human bodies.” This concept was expressed in consonants and vowels, which were not arbitrary, but an unambiguous and direct expression of the experience. This was the case everywhere on earth. The existence of a “primal language” common to all people is not a figment of the imagination. To a certain extent, the initiates of every nation are still able to understand this original language. Every language contains certain sounds reminiscent of it; in fact, our modern languages are the relics of the primeval, universal human language.

This original language was inspired by the superhuman beings, our true forerunners, who completed their development on the Moon. If there had been no other influence than this, the entire human race would basically have remained unified; there would have been one universal way of speaking and thinking everywhere on earth. Individuality and diversity could not have developed, and human freedom likewise could not have been established. Divisions and splits in humanity were necessary for the development of human individuality. Languages became different in each region of the earth because of the work of those teachers who were an incarnation of a luciferic being. These luciferic or “retarded” angelic beings used the language of the nation in which they incarnated for their teaching. Thus, we owe the fact that every nation speaks a particular, non-universal language to the presence of such great, enlightening teachers, who were, in fact, “retarded” angelic beings who had reached a far higher level than the human beings around them. Beings like the early heroes celebrated by the ancient Greeks who worked in human form, for example, as well as beings who worked in human form in other nations, were such incarnations of angelic beings who had not completed their development.

Clearly, then, these beings cannot be dismissed as completely “evil.” On the contrary, they have provided what has destined the human race to be free by introducing diversity into what would otherwise have remained universally uniform over the whole earth. This is true for many other aspects of life as well as for languages. Individualization, differentiation, and freedom are due to the beings who remained behind on the Moon.

To be sure, it may be said that the wise leadership of the world intended to guide all beings to their goal in the planetary evolution. However, if this had been done directly, certain other things would not have been achieved. Certain beings are held back in their development because they have a special task in the evolution of humanity. The beings who had completely fulfilled their task on the Moon would have created only a uniform humanity and, therefore, they had to be opposed by the luciferic beings. And this in turn gave these luciferic beings the possibility of changing something that was actually a defect into something good.

1911-11-21-GA132

Inner Realities of Evolution, Lecture 4: Inner aspect of the moon-embodiment of the earth

1912-06-12-GA137

(SWCC)

.. there is deep significance in the fact that from among the many kinds of experience man acquires through the first higher consciousness, I chose the story of the Temptation. For when we direct the same consciousness to the ancient Moon, we find there a repetition of the story of the Temptation. (I say a repetition, but naturally it took place long before!)

We learn how Christ already on the Old Moon overcame Lucifer.

In the scene that is given us in the Gospels we have to see a recurrence of the fact that Christ attained to victory over Lucifer. On Earth Christ repels Lucifer from the outset. This is because on Old Moon, when He was less highly evolved (for Christ also undergoes evolution) He had repelled, through the uttermost devotion of His Being to Highest Powers, all the attacks of Lucifer which at that time still meant something to Him. Already on Old Moon Lucifer approached Christ. On Earth he was no longer dangerous to Him: on Earth Christ repels Lucifer at once. On Old Moon, however, Christ had to exert all the forces at His disposal in order to repel Lucifer.

This is then the added experience that comes to us when we cast back the gaze of higher consciousness into the remote time of Old Moon.

1924-07-03-GA354

this lecture transcription mentions Old Moon, but the lecture is really about the Separation of Moon and early Earth conditions

['watery' fluid condition of Old Moon]

... the Earth was originally not what it is today, but was a kind of living being.

I described the condition that existed before our actual Earth condition by saying that warmth, air, and water were there but as yet no really solid mineral structures. Now you must not imagine that the water existing at that time looked like the present water. Our present water has become what it is by the separation of certain substances which were formerly dissolved in it. If you take a glass of ordinary water and put some salt in it, the salt dissolves in the water and you get a fluid-a salt solution, as one calls it-which is denser than the original water. If you put your fingers in it, it feels much denser than water. Now dissolved salt is relatively thin; with certain other substances one gets quite a thickish liquid.

The fluid condition, the water condition which existed in earlier ages of our Earth was therefore not that of today's water. That did not exist, for substances were dissolved in the water everywhere. All the substances that you have today-the Jura limestone mountains, for instance-were dissolved; harder rocks that you can't scratch with a knife (limestone can always be scratched) were also dissolved in the water. During this Old Moon stage, therefore, one has to do with a thickish fluid that contained in solution all the substances which today are solid.

...

In earlier times immense quantities of metals and even of sulphur were present in the air. The air was quite saturated with sulphur. So there was a thickish water—if one had not been especially heavy one could have gone for a walk on it; it was like running tar—and there was a dense air, so dense that one could not have breathed in it with our present lungs. These were only formed later. The mode of life of the creatures that existed at that time was utterly different.

Now you must picture to yourselves that the Earth once looked like this. (See drawing.)

Had you found yourself there with your present eyes, you would not have discovered the stars and sun and moon out there, for you would have looked out into a vague ocean of air which reached an end eventually. If one could have lived then with the present sense organs, one would have seemed to be inside a world-egg beyond which one could see nothing. And you can imagine how different the Earth looked at that time, like a kind of giant egg yolk, a thick fluid, and a thick air environment corresponding to the white of the present-day egg.

...

We can say, therefore, that out of the Old Moon arose the present Earth together with the mineral kingdom.

Related pages

• Evolution
• Overview of solar system evolution
• Christ on Old Moon
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• Human astral body
• War in heaven
• Planetoid belt