An Outline of Occult Science

by Rudolf Steiner

In the effect of light, however, man does not yet distinguish in quite the same manner between the outer and the inner. When light-pictures appear around him, they do not always produce the same feeling in the soul of the earth-man. There were times when he felt them as external images. This [pg 209] was during the period when he had just descended from the disembodied state into incarnation. It was the period of his growth on earth. As the time approached for the embryo to be developed those images faded, and man only retained something like inner memory-pictures of them. The actions of the Sons of Fire (Archangels) were contained in those light-pictures, which appeared to man to be the servitors of the Fire-spirits who sent down a spark into his own inner being. When their outer manifestations died away, man felt them inwardly in the form of images (memories). He felt himself united with their forces. And so indeed he was. For by means of what he had received from them, he was able to work upon his surrounding atmosphere. This, under his influence, began to emit light.

At that time nature forces and human forces were not as yet separated from each other as they subsequently became. What happened on earth still emanated to a great extent from human forces. Viewing nature processes on the earth from the outside, one would then have seen in them not only something independent of man, but also the effect of human activity within those processes. Sound-perceptions assumed a still more different form to the earth-man. From the beginning of earth-life they had been perceived as outer tones. Whereas the external air pictures were perceived up to the middle of earth existence, the external tones could be heard even after that middle period. And only toward the end of his life did the earth-man become [pg 210] insensible to them. But the memory-pictures of those sounds remained. In them were contained the manifestations of the Sons of Life (Angels). When, toward the end of his life, man felt himself inwardly united with those forces, he was able, by imitating them, to produce mighty effects in the earth's watery element. The waters surged in and above the earth under his influence. Man had perceptions of taste only during the first quarter of his earth-life, and even then they seemed to the soul like a memory of the experience of his disembodied state. As long as they lasted, his body continued to grow more and more solid by assimilating external substances. In the second quarter of earth life growth still continued, but the form was already fully developed. At this time man could perceive other living beings near him only through their heat, light, and sound effects; for he was not as yet capable of imagining the solid element. During the first quarter of his life he received the taste-impressions described, only through the watery element.

Man's external bodily form was an image of this inner psychic condition. Those parts were most fully developed which contained the first fore-shadowing of the later form of the head. The other organs appeared only as appendages. These were shadowy and indistinct. Yet earth-beings varied with regard to form. There were some in whom the appendages were more or less developed, according to the earth-conditions under which they lived. This varied with people's different dwelling [pg 211] places on the earth. Where they were more involved in the things of earth, the appendages became more prominent. Those human beings who at the beginning of physical development on earth were the ripest, owing to their previous evolution, having come in contact with the fire-element at the very beginning before the earth had been condensed into air, were those now able to develop the first beginnings of the head most completely. They were those persons possessing most inner harmony.

Others were ready for contact with the fire-element only when the earth had already evolved air within it. They were more dependent upon outer conditions than the first mentioned, who distinctly felt the Lords of Form through heat, and during their earth-life felt as though they retained a memory of having belonged to those spirits and of having been connected with them in the disembodied state. The second species of human beings only had the memory of the disembodied state to a more limited degree; they were conscious of their fellowship with the spiritual world chiefly through the light-influences of the Sons of Fire (Archangels). A third type of human beings was still more entangled in earthly existence. It was they who were unable to come in contact with the fire-element until the earth was separated from the sun and had absorbed the watery element within itself. Their feeling of fellowship with the spiritual world was especially slight at the beginning of earth-life. Only when the activities of the Archangels, and more especially of the [pg 212] Angels, influenced the inner imaginative life, did they feel this connection to any degree. On the other hand, at the beginning of the earth-period they were full of active impulses for performing deeds which can be accomplished under earthly conditions only. In them the extremities were particularly strongly developed.

When the Moon-forces, before the separation of the moon from the earth, tended more and more to harden the latter, it happened that among the descendants of the embryos left behind upon the earth by man, there were some in whom human souls returning from the disembodied state could no longer incarnate in consequence of the Moon-forces. The form of these descendants was too much solidified and through the Moon-forces, had become too unlike the human form to be able to reassume it. Consequently certain human souls no longer found it possible, under these circumstances, to return to earth. Only the ripest and strongest of these souls felt competent to transform the earth-body during its growth, so that it could blossom into a human form. Only a portion of the bodily descendants of man became the vehicles of earthly human beings. Another part, because of its solidified form, was able to receive only souls on a lower level than those of men. But there was one group of human souls, however, which was prevented from participating in the earth-evolution of that time. In this way they were driven to embark on another course.

There were souls who, as far back as the separation [pg 213] of the sun from the earth, found no place on the latter. For their further evolution they were removed to a planet which, under the guidance of cosmic beings, was detached from the universal world-substance,—that substance of which the earth formed a part at the beginning of its physical evolution, and from which the sun had separated. This planet, in its physical expression, is the one known to outer science as “Jupiter.” (Here we are speaking of celestial bodies, planets, and their names exactly in the sense of a more ancient science, and as is in harmony with occult science. Just as the physical earth is only the physical expression of a great psycho-spiritual organism, so is every other celestial body. And as the seer does not denote only the physical planet by the word “earth,” nor only the physical fixed star by “sun,” so when speaking of “Jupiter,” “Mars,” and the other planets, he signifies far-reaching spiritual relationships. The form and mission of the heavenly bodies have, in the nature of things, been essentially changed since the times of which we are here speaking,—in a certain respect even their position in celestial space has been changed. It is possible only for one who follows with the seer's vision the evolution of those celestial bodies back to remote ages of the past, to apprehend the connection of contemporary planets with their predecessors.) On Jupiter the souls that have been described continued their evolution.

And later, when the earth was tending more and more toward solidification, still another abode had [pg 214] to be prepared for souls who even though they were able to occupy the solidified bodies for a time, could no longer do so when this solidification had progressed too far. An appropriate place for their further evolution was prepared on “Mars.” Even as far back as the time when the soul was still united with the sun, and was incorporating the sun's air elements within itself, certain souls were proving unfit to participate in the earth's evolution. They were too powerfully affected by the earthly bodily form. Accordingly, even at that time, they had to be withdrawn from the direct influence of the Sun-forces. These had to influence them from without. The planet Saturn became the scene of their further evolution.

Thus, in the course of the earth's evolution, the number of human forms decreased, and forms appeared which had not embodied human souls. These were able to receive only astral bodies as the human physical and etheric bodies on the old Moon had done. While the earth was becoming depopulated as far as human beings were concerned, these other beings were colonizing it. Eventually all human souls would have been compelled to leave the earth if, by detaching the Moon from it, a way had not been provided to preserve those human bodies which at that time could still harbor human souls. It was made possible for these, during their earth life, to withdraw the human ego from the effects of the Moon-forces coming directly from the earth, thus allowing it to mature sufficiently within themselves [pg 215] until it could be exposed directly to those forces. As long as the embryo was developing within man, it was under the influence of those beings who, under the leadership of the mightiest of their number, had detached the moon from the earth in order to conduct the evolution of the latter over a critical point.

When the earth had developed the air element within it, astral beings were present as described above, who had belonged to the old Moon and who had been left behind. They had fallen short even of the lowest human souls in their evolution. They became the souls of those forms which already before the separation of the Sun had to be abandoned by man. These beings are the ancestors of the animal kingdom. As time went on, they developed especially those organs which in man thus far only existed as appendages. Their astral body had to work on the physical and etheric bodies in the same way as did the human astral body during the old Moon-period. Now the animals which had thus come into existence had souls which could not dwell in the individual animals. The soul extended its being also to the descendant. Virtually, animals descended from one form have a soul in common. Only when the descendant diverges from the ancestral type through special influences, does a new animal soul become incarnated. In this sense, in accordance with occult science, we can speak of a species or group-soul, in animals.

Something of a similar nature took place at the [pg 216] time of the separation of sun and earth. There came forth from the watery element, forms no further evolved than man was before the old Moon-evolution. They could only receive an impression from anything of an astral nature when the latter influenced them from without. This could not happen until after the departure of the sun from the earth. Whenever the sun-period of the earth set in, the astral element in the sun stimulated these forms in such a way that they formed their vital body out of the etheric part of the earth. When the sun turned away from the earth, that etheric body was again dissolved into the common earth-life. And as a result of the co-operation of the astral part of the sun with the etheric part of the earth, there emerged from the watery element those physical forms which became the ancestors of the present vegetable kingdom.