Introduction to the Basics of Theosophy

GA 111 — 26 September 1907, Hanover

VI. The First Three World Days

In order to understand everything else better, it is useful to follow the development of the world on a large scale. First, our planetary development comes into consideration. Our Earth is our dwelling place and has already undergone many changes. When man has reached his goal, the Earth will also change into another planet. Our Earth has to go through seven embodiments as a planet: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. The planet that was Earth as Saturn is not in the sky today. Today's Saturn was in its childhood then and is now in its manhood. Our Earth has nothing to do with the present Saturn. The names are therefore to be understood as generic terms and not as earthly conditions.

By studying man himself, the planetary conditions become clear to us best. Man is the oldest being on earth. When the earth was Saturn, something of him was already present. The mineral, plant and animal kingdoms developed later. Occultism shows us the development quite differently than the Darwinian method.

The fact that the most perfect part of the human being is the physical body cannot be grasped with the mind alone, but with the soul. For example, consider a thigh bone. With the application of the least material: what a magnificent bridge framework and network of beams! The art of engineering has not yet been able to imitate such a structure with the simplest means to achieve the greatest strength in the distance.

What tremendous work the heart does! The astral body, with its passions, assails it, supplying it with a multitude of heart poisons; it can only survive because it is so strongly built.

On Jupiter the etheric body will be perfect.
On Venus the astral body will be perfect.
On Vulcan the I will be perfect.

The physical body is the oldest, on the sun the ether body was added, on the moon the astral body, and in the present state of the earth the I moved into the human being. In the sun, a core of the ether body moved into the human being. On the moon, the astral body called the physical body to its perfection. The gods worked on the physical body the longest.

No body can replace glands if it is not permeated by an etheric body. On Saturn, we see the first rudiments of eyes, ears, larynx, liver, spleen, and bone system. The chemical processes on the Sun are found in living form on Saturn. The physical apparatus was formed. What is the eye if not a photographic apparatus! In the ear, tiny hairs are tuned to sounds, only through this can it pick up sounds. The larynx is a trumpet. The whole sphere of Saturn was covered with small reflective dots - eyes, ears and so on.

Saturn was not a dense mass; there was also no water or air, it was a state of warmth, still dark, no fire breaking out. When I look into a human eye, I see my image; so Saturn sent its rays out into the world and reflected itself in it. The echo is a reflected sound. Saturn reflected everything like a great echo. We actually have seven senses, two of which are hidden: a sense of time and a sense of space. We actually have to describe the sense of touch or feeling as a sense of warmth. The sense of space is now quite hidden; it is a small channel in the inner ear; rods that stand in three directions. In the past, these were large organs. The ability to acquire mathematical knowledge is based on the complete development of these organs. The geometer draws his logical conclusions and judgments not through the brain, but through the sense of space; through it we know the three dimensions of space.

The sense of time is located in the eye. It is the small black point in the eye and has the ability to contract and expand the ring-shaped muscles of the pupil.

A person who does not have this sense easily suffers from madness, which is why the psychiatrist sees the condition of pupillary rigidity. Morphine makes the point smaller and smaller. Today this sense is difficult to find.

Then Saturn darkened, entered its [pralaya] state and became the Sun.

What is now called the zodiac was reflected in Saturn and formed the ring. How things are reflected depends on the surface. A concave mirror reflects things in a circle. Saturn reflects the other stars, which unite in it as if at a focal point.

The sun forms beings with an etheric body. There were those who remained who had no etheric body; they remained Saturn beings; only with a physical body, they formed the second realm.

On the Sun, man was a plant) as he still is in sleep. And just as plants are still sleeping today, humans in the solar state were in a perpetual sleep.

On Saturn, man was in the mineral state, but we must not imagine it to be as condensed as our present-day minerals.

Unlike Saturn, the Sun did not reflect heat back, but first absorbed it and then radiated it. If we had wanted to enter its surface, we would have felt as if we were in steam; it is similar to the present state of the Sun.

While Saturn was permeable and reflected everything, there were spots on the sun, the retarded, the other was a luminous mass of gas. This is the spiritual explanation of sunspots. The occultist does not have to deny what the physical explainer says, he just sees more. As one sees a mirage, so did man see the luminous gas masses with their fine apparatus. The end of the air-shaped sun was approaching.

The state of the moon resembles that of water, it was only denser and more jelly-like, similar to the protein substance. Here man received the etheric body in addition to the astral body. The glandular masses - concerning digestion, reproduction and so on - were caused by the etheric body, the nervous system came through the astral body. The sense organs were developed to a higher degree on the moon.

The beings that had remained on the sun formed the third kingdom on the moon, so that we have mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. The latter, however, are different from the higher animals. They were animal-men, the regularly developed first kingdom; the other kingdoms have remained at the various levels. The highest kingdom actually consisted of animal-men and the second kingdom of plant-animals, the third kingdom of mineral-plants, the kingdoms have descended half a level.

The human animals, however, were half a step higher than our present-day apes. The moon mass itself was a plant-mineral kingdom, it was like a peat bog, a mass of plants, half alive. The moon as a sphere consisted of the firmest mass of these wood and bark masses.

A separation occurred in the moon's development. A sun drew its forces from the moon and kept the finest masses for itself. The bodies merged again, and a darkening occurred. An old moon with dense masses then orbited the sun. We now have the sun and the moon; the human animal lived on the moon.

The Earth revolves around itself in twenty-four hours; around the sun, once a year. The old moon revolved around itself in the same amount of time, but always turned the same side towards the sun. The consequence was: there was a warm and a cold half. Therefore, it happened that the creatures went to the warm side during the mating season and to the cold side at other times, they orbited the moon constantly. The migratory behavior of [today's] migratory birds can still be traced back to a moon habit. Likewise, the mating seasons of animals and the like are still connected to moon habits.