The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit

GA 68b — 31 October 1907, Berlin

32. The Origin of Man

[What we are dealing with today has been called the question of all questions. What could touch man more deeply, if the question is only framed broadly enough – touch him more deeply, from a certain point of view – than reflecting on his origin, on his descent, because] everyone probably has an inkling that this question includes much of what alone can enlighten man about his true nature, about his destiny and about the nature of his life in general.

Now, however, from the point of view from which we are to speak to you today about human descent, it is difficult to make ourselves understood even to our contemporaries, if they are not already somehow prepared for it through spiritual science, because compared to what is being put forward from many sides today about the descent or origin of man, what we have to say in this our meditation will seem as if it were spoken in a completely, completely different language; and given the great interest that is shown in this question today, and given the public suggestion — we may perhaps call it that — which is not true science, but many of the catchwords that have been taken from this science and which today dominate many minds, with all this, much of what is presented today will perhaps seem to some even more than what was already said in the last three lectures [of this series] much more like a mere reverie, like a fantasy. When two such fundamentally different things confront each other as what a world view that is more materialistically colored — the word does not need to be pressed — has to say about the origin of man and what spiritual science, as we are considering it here, has to present, when two such different things confront each other, then, then, above all, one must first of all bring one thing to mind. Anyone who has familiarized themselves with the concepts and ideas that dominate our popular literature when the origin of man is discussed and it is claimed that this origin of man is spoken of in the way it must be according to scientific facts; [if you are confronted with this] when you have read your way into popular [or, for that matter, more or less scientific literature, one must still bear in mind that the concepts and ideas that someone adopts are not always based entirely on real contemplation, on real observation, but on authority, which is adopted in a, one might say, mysterious, mystical way – and this word is used in the worst sense – [by what is once popular], by what once has prestige.

And it must be realized that it is extremely difficult for those who have become accustomed to thinking in the direction that confronts them to bring the ideas they have once accepted into any kind of acceptable relationship with ideas of a different nature [that are put forward, for example, from the perspective of spiritual science]. Therefore, anyone who speaks about this question from the point of view of spiritual science today has no illusions about the fact that he could easily be understood by all those who have surrendered their habitual ways of thinking, by what is commonly accepted and seemingly based on the solid facts of science. That would certainly be an illusion. Nevertheless, from this spiritual-scientific point of view, what is to be said must be said, especially today, for little by little these ideas will find their way into the minds of all those who can free themselves from the [thought habits] just mentioned. This should be stated in advance so that it is not believed that the humanities scholar only indulges in such illusions, that he can conquer those who live in strict scientific ideas in flight, or that it cannot happen, [that one confronts such ideas], and say from their point of view, that what he has presented is pure nonsense, [pure folly]. As a rule, he is able to present the arguments put forward by the opponents of the former very easily himself. The deception then mostly lies with those who approach it from a spiritual scientific point of view and believe that its arguments could contain anything new for him.

Thus, we may well consider this subject [from the standpoint of spiritual science] without prejudice, given this assumption. Monistic thinking takes the easy way out by posing the question in materialistic terms, using a curious logic... Our natural science, which has been equipped with such admirable progress in the course of the 19th century – and no one but the humanities scholar can marvel at this progress in natural science – our natural science has, among many other things, also broadened the human view of the sum of living beings that live around us today and that lived on this earth in earlier epochs of the earth's development. We find their remains more or less preserved in the layers of our earth, where we once found creatures that were little like us. And a kind of religion, a kind of belief, that has been built on this scientific fact, has concluded from the contemplation, from the appropriate contemplation of what the world shows around us today, if we look at the layers of the earth to search for pre-worldly beings. This confession has turned it into a kind of theory of evolution that contains an extraordinary amount of interesting, important and also correct information.

But we can characterize the logical error that this theory of evolution makes with a few words – and we must characterize it [in this way] – and it is precisely when we start from this point that we will gather the material for thought in order to present that [being] to our minds, which can be said from the point of view of spiritual science. Science shows us [today] the perfect being alongside imperfect life. If we examine the layers of our earth, science shows us a series of [apparently] imperfect living creatures [to seemingly perfect beings], so that we can say: It is obvious to the human eye that one living creature is imperfect and the other is perfect.

Now, due to circumstances and facts [that we do not want to explain here], a remarkable logical conclusion has been drawn from this.

The conclusion has arisen that imperfect living beings have developed without further ado, that man, who is the most perfect living being we encounter, is descended from imperfect and increasingly imperfect living beings down to the most [im]perfect of all.

Let us consider this conclusion in its simplest, logical, sober form: the perfect has arisen from the imperfect. By making a comparison, we can make this conclusion clear to ourselves and then ask ourselves whether it is possible. Let us assume that we see two people next to each other, one with a genius for hard work, who has developed great diligence in life and has achieved something respectable. If we take another person next to him, we see a different person who has few abilities, who was also lazy and lethargic and has achieved nothing of note. Now we hear that these two are related. How they are related is something we should think about first, because that is the question in relation to the so-called developmental problem. When we look at the beings around us, we see that humans, with their various organs, are similar to lower forms of life, so-called imperfect ones. We see that humans have a slightly different structure, but basically the same bones as lower creatures. We could cite numerous other reasons that could lead us to the conclusion that we must assume a relationship. But what this relationship is like has not been established by facts, but inferred. No one should entertain the belief that the origin of the higher from the lower has been established; it has been inferred.

So if we know that they [the two people standing opposite each other] are related, [if we] can determine that from something, can we then conclude that [the one who has the genius and who was hardworking and achieved something decent comes] from [the other who was lazy and careless and did not improve]? Anyone who reflects a little will be able to realize how unnatural such a conclusion would be, and how easily he could be set right in his thinking if it were shown to him that the one as well as the other person descended from the same parents, that the one has only developed upward to his industriousness, but the other has declined, has developed downward. It is extremely trivial, [what I see], and it could seem as if an admirable theory that prevails in the world today should be refuted [by an /illegible/ triviality].

Unfortunately, however, [if we look closely] this logical blunder is [made] because it is known that the higher organism is related, [and it is] concluded that the higher one descends from the lower one – [by thinking that one could say that the more highly developed human descends from the lower, lazy human].

Now let us expand this little reflection to include, say, different peoples living side by side, a lower-developed people and a higher-developed people. Today, we have become accustomed to thinking that a higher-developed people with significant spiritual education [and cultural achievements] has developed from a state in which a lower-developed people finds itself today. Exactly the same conclusion as one would draw if one were to place these two people next to each other today. It is possible that one could be corrected if one were to research the facts, just as spiritual science is able to show that it is not the case that the spiritually higher educated people descend from the lower, but that] on the contrary, there is a common descent [of the two], that one that is spiritually more highly developed has developed in one direction and the other in the direction of decline. So that when we examine the ancestry, we are led up to a common primal people, not to the one that lives next to the other today, but to a common one. Since both live side by side, [they descend equally from the primal people]. Only one has developed upwards, the other downwards [in a certain respect].

Let us look at this in a little more detail, [so that our minds can form certain concrete ideas in the process]. You all know that when the European immigrants first moved to the American continent, they encountered an indigenous people [there], a people who are believed [in natural historical thinking] to represent earlier stages of the present peoples. From a European point of view, they were certainly at a low level of civilization back then, but if you take such an absolute point of view, you can go very wrong in your judgment. Let's imagine a scene to illustrate this. The Europeans have not always managed things so well. They have not always chosen the best means to exterminate the free man. One of the last chiefs [of the free people] who came from the areas from which [the Native Americans] were expelled in North America [was one of the last] to face a European conqueror, a leader of a European culture. The inhabitants of America had been deprived of their lands, including the tribe to which that Indian chief belonged. [The scene took place not so long ago.] The people had been promised land for what was taken from them, and it had not been kept.

The leader of the “redskins” stood opposite the leader of the Europeans. We have preserved a speech that the leader of the Native Americans addressed to the Europeans who had defeated his tribe and had not given them any land. I cannot even give you a literal translation of this speech, only the gist of it, what it contains. This is roughly what the chief said to the European: “Yes, you Europeans, you promised us other land for the land whose soil is covered by the corpses of our free brothers, you did not give us other land. That is because the pale man believes in different things than the free man. The pale man has strange magic tools, where little magic creatures are on them, he looks into them and sees what is right for him, he sees what is true and what is false. - The chief once saw the books and thought the letters were such magic creatures, [magic spirits that cause the Europeans to take such measures]. The free man does not believe in such spirits; the free man does not read what is written in such books of spells; the free man goes out and hears how the water rushes and how the trees rustle in the forest and he understands that. Because the Great Spirit speaks to him through the rushing of the water and the rustling of the trees. He always speaks the truth, and because you do not know the Great Spirit, who speaks the truth in the rushing of the water and the rustling of the trees, that is why you behave in this way. The pale man can never understand the free man, otherwise he would not trample with his weapons on the earth, which covers the bones of our brothers and which will one day take revenge on the pale ones!

What interests us about this strange speech by the free man, however, is the reference to the Great Spirit, whom he suspected everywhere. In the rustling of the trees, [in the trickling of the springs], even in thunder and lightning, [in all natural phenomena] the [divine] great spirit spoke to him. What is remarkable about this “savage” population is [this monotheistic religion], this remoteness from all superstition in their fundamental religious belief, which shines through the many superstitions that were present. You really don't need to go very far with your logic before you can see that those who were conquered by the Europeans, from whom the Europeans do not descend, but both [the European and the American population] descend from a common people, who must have had a wonderful natural religion. That will be a hypothesis if one stands on the standpoint of the sense-physical facts; that is a certainty if one [researches spiritually with the methods that we will talk about in the next lectures, especially in the second-next one, which is about initiation]. The American population, which had declined in certain respects, had lost its original purity and developed in another direction [towards a lower level]; the European, from his point of view, developed in the opposite direction. This gives us a concept of development that shows us very, very different perspectives than the simple concept of development that people are so keen to present to us as the only possible one. We see how this development is not at all simple, how we must assume earlier states of existence from which today's emerged, how that which today lives as imperfect in the imperfect appears to be a branch-off that develops towards imperfection. If we could go back in time to the distant past, we would find peoples who are the ancestors of the European [population] as well as those of the conquered American Indians. The path of development went so that a straight development [direction] led to the present-day developed population. But those who did not keep up, who did not absorb what could have led to perfection, came to a decline. The others are not descended from them, but descended from a common ancestor, others have progressed. [They are not merely /uncertain reading] lagging behind on a different point of view, but] because they lagged behind, they now show a state that was never present in ancient times. Because [they were] unable to develop further, [they] regressed.

We can now extend this concept to all living things. If we extend it in this way, we go back to the mammals that are closer to humans. Any simple theory of evolution would assume that the higher mammals were the ancestors of man. Today, this notion of man's very brutal descent from apes has been somewhat dropped, but the line of thought is still based on what appears to be different. If we imagine the relationship between humans and higher apes using this concept, we will say: Today's apes may descend from that original being that existed in the distant past and to which humans have evolved, but they have remained at [an older point of view], and therefore, in their present state, [in their present form] do not represent the ancestors of mankind, but the degenerate creation [that has wanted to hold on to an old form; that has corrupted itself]. Therefore, when today's man looks at this ape, he sees it with the mind, [then] it appears to him as a caricature of his own being, not at all as an ancestor, [and anyone with such feelings experiences it] as a kind of embarrassment... [illegible] when the original characteristics of man are corrupted.

[And so, step by step, we descend from higher to much lower creatures. In the remote past, we come to ancestors of man, whom we must not seek in creatures similar to present-day humans – the further back we go, the more dissimilar they become to the creatures that exist today. They are quite differently shaped]; from those ancestors of man, as a retarded and therefore declining entity, the lower mammals and other lower creatures descend. If we go back to the simplest creatures, [those that live today, consisting of one cell, from which one would also like to derive man,] then we would have to say that, yes, these creatures are undoubtedly related to man. But in the distant past, when man had an ancestor [from whom even these simple single-celled organisms descended, man looked quite different, his ancestor was a completely different being: The simplest organisms are the ones that are furthest behind and therefore the furthest from the original form of [the human being]. This is because they branched off earliest and, since humans have perfected themselves, have undergone a decline, [taken a direction of decline, and are the ones that are furthest from the original form].

Now let us look at this original form of man himself from the point of view of spiritual science. [There we have to take a look at the essence of man, as we have already frequently done.] We cannot look at [man] from the point of view of spiritual science in the simple way that we look at the physical body in material science.

[In what material science regards as the only thing, the human body, only one limb of the human being is based – this is only briefly hinted at – which has the same forces and materials as the seemingly inanimate matter – but science sees this body only be composed of these substances and forces in such an implicit way that these substances and forces could not maintain their form, as the material maintains its form], if the human physical body were not permeated and imbued with the second part of its being, the etheric or life body. This etheric or life body is for the spiritual scientist - [as already shown here last week] - a reality, a higher reality than the physical body, for it is the shaper and creator of the physical body. This etheric body or life body, which is a constant fighter against the dissolution of the physical body, because the moment the etheric body separates from the physical body, death occurs, and the physical body becomes a corpse. This etheric or life body is shared by humans and all other living beings, plants and animals. The third [link is called the astral body in spiritual science for good reasons]. The astral body is the carrier of lust and suffering, of joy and pain, of all instincts, drives, passions, ideas and feelings, of all that lives in the human being. This astral body is the third link of the human being. It has more in common only with the animal world, no longer with the plant world. [Then we already mentioned eight days ago] the fourth link of the human being, through which man is the crown of earthly creation, that which we could say is designated in the German language by the only name that differs from all other names, the name of our ego. The ego name, when you think about it, indicates the essence of the [ego]. [But first turn to] Fichte, [who said]:

Most people would much rather consider themselves a
piece of lava in the moon than an ego.

This ego can only be called from within itself. The name 'I' can never reach my ear if it denotes my own self; that can only be designated by the name 'I' from within. This has been discovered and recognized by those who study spiritual science: here is the actual sanctuary, the innermost link of human nature, to which nothing else of earthly things has access, but where human divine essence penetrates to one. [Man's divine essence announces itself in the ego.] By letting the little word “I” sound to itself, the soul speaks to itself what [religion] refers to as the God in man. This fourth link [of the human essence] is no longer shared by man with other beings, but is for himself and is thus the crown of earthly creation. ... /Illegible words]

[Thus, we initially have the human being as a tetrad before us, and anyone who speaks from a so-called monistic point of view would therefore not only want to accuse this spiritual-scientific view of dualism, which has been used to is done with it, but] then he should also reproach the dualism of the person who says that water consists of oxygen and hydrogen. If it is a mistake to look for light in its primary colors, only the one who does not think of dissecting the thing into its individual parts, or who claims of the individual that it is the comprehensive one, is a monist.]

Only he is a monist who does not think of dissecting the thing into its own members or of claiming that a single member is the whole. Then the word monism becomes a buzzword that does not take into account the facts. [But after all, people work with buzzwords today, not with facts.]

Now we can only understand the origin and descent of man if we consider the relationships between these elements of human beings in the present-day individual. We must distinguish between the two essentially different states in which we encounter man, waking and sleeping. These are two fundamentally different states. It was a remarkable fact when Du Bois-Reymond, [the naturalist], said [and it has already been pointed out in the first of these lectures] at the Leipzig Naturalists' Assembly: 'If one were to examine everything that goes on in the human physical body, all these [complicated movements and] processes, one could indeed investigate how hydrogen and oxygen and carbon and nitrogen [move in such a way, but one could examine all this], but one would never be able to explain the simplest fact of consciousness from these movements: “I feel red”, “I smell the scent of roses”. And likewise, even if someone were to see all the movements with the most wonderful instruments, he would only see movement, but not the soul processes, “I see red and feel the scent of roses”.

It is the worst materialistic superstition, and basically very interesting, that even on scientific ground it has been pointed out [although he has made significant blunders] that the fact of consciousness of the simplest sensation can never be explained from the facts of the physical body. We can understand the sleeping person, but never the waking one. Why? When a person sleeps, all these facts seem to sink into an indeterminate abyss, and because that is missing, we can understand what remains. Du Bois-Reymond, who is himself a materialist, rightly found the fact of life inexplicable.

To make this clear, let us consider the difference between the waking and the sleeping human being. In the waking body, we have the astral human being connected to the physical and etheric bodies. In the sleeping person, on the other hand, we have separated the astral body, detached it from the physical body [and from the etheric body. The difference between being awake and sleeping is that the astral body is separated from the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, but is connected to the physical and etheric bodies when we are awake.]

However, if you imagine purely in material and spatial terms that a kind of material cloud [as the astral body] emerges from the physical body, you still have a rather materialistic idea.

One must not deny that what often calls itself Theosophy is also tainted by this materialism; materialism has taken hold in such a way that the opponents of materialism themselves work with materialistic ideas. People must gradually educate themselves to imagine the separation of the etheric body from the physical body and to know that when using spatial expressions, they should be understood as images or as a parable.

The human being, as he is today in his development, is just not able to perceive his physical organs [during sleep]; when the astral body reconnects with the physical body in the morning upon waking, [he can then perceive the physical surroundings through the eyes and ears]. What perceives is not your physical body, but the I with the astral body, which moves into its physical body in the morning. Physical organs are the instruments of this I equipped with a physical body. Therefore, no one would think of saying, “my brain feels a color, sees a friend,” but rather, everyone correctly says, “I see a friend,” “I perceive a color,” and so on.

When we consider the fact that today, when we are asleep, the human being, his I and his astral body are outside the physical and etheric body, then those who ask – [then we have to ask ourselves]: Where is the I [with the astral body] then? That is also somewhere in another world, in a world that belongs to the supersensible worlds. What does that mean? Where is this supersensible world? Those who oppose spiritual science imagine that spiritual science imagines this supersensible world to be in a beyond. Here it is, all around us!

And how does spiritual science imagine this supersensible world? Not any differently than [one has to imagine] colors and light for the blind. Imagine that you have a congenitally blind person below you. That which is around you, colors and light, is also around him, but he does not see it. For him, the world is what he can feel; for him, the world is [as for you, the world is the world of light and colors]. But if we could operate on this man born blind at this moment, so that he would see, out of the darkness that was around him, the lights and colors would light up, [and the world that was not there for him before. Why is it there now? We see that he has now formed it out of the physical.]

There are as many worlds in infinity as a being has organs to perceive them. [We will see in later lectures that] man, as he once had the disposition in primeval times to the eyes, which at that time could not yet see, but became seeing in the course of development, that all men have the disposition to what is called in spiritual science with Goethe, “the spiritual ears, the spiritual eyes”. Spiritual eyes and ears are present in man as a predisposition and can be developed. This is the purpose of spiritual science, that it gives people the methods to be able to enter the state that is related to the blind-born, [who can be] operated on, [to the world of colors and light, and] of course someone who knows nothing about it should not decide anything about such a world, [but] the only thing that can be said is that this is there, what can be perceived. And it is not only people of the future who can perceive these higher worlds that are around us, but these methods can be applied to people of the present.

People of the present know as a fact, as a primal form, that one can relate to the [higher] worlds as the blind are born [to the world of colors and light]. By awakening the spiritual ears and eyes, new worlds can arise that are around us. In this world and in no other is the human ego and the astral body when they are separated at night from the physical and etheric bodies. As long as a person's spiritual ears and eyes are not awakened, he cannot see [in this spiritual world], so consciousness fades away. But then, when spiritual eyes and ears are awakened, he can see.

But never can [may] perception decide on existence. [Otherwise a blind man could say to a seeing man who says he sees color and light: You are a fool, I see nothing at all]. Existence does not coincide with truth.

Now we ask ourselves the further question: What does this astral body do during the night and what is its business? [Is it unemployed?] This astral body is indeed busy during the night. When you work from morning till evening or let impressions of the outside world affect you through your senses, then something is going on [continually within you], and that is the fatigue, the wearing down of the forces of the physical body. Why is a healthy sleep so healthy? Because the astral body works [during the night on the removal of fatigue, of worn-out substances], on the restoration of the worn-out forces. What the astral body has done, you feel [in the morning as] a refreshment [even if you do not know how it works].

So this astral body works throughout the night, but how is it able to work in the physical body? It is able to do so because it is now not within but outside the physical body. An astral human body that is outside the physical body can work on that body. The one that is in the body has to make use of the organs of the physical body [to perceive the physical environment] and cannot restore [the worn physical body] from within it. Therefore, for all beings that have their astral body within them during wakefulness, it is necessary that the waking state alternates with the sleeping state.

When death occurs, what happens then? What does not happen during our entire life. Then not only the astral separates from the physical, but also the etheric body from the physical. [When you have the sleeping body in front of you, the physical and etheric bodies are in perfect connection in bed, the astral body is lifted out.] If you have the corpse in front of you, then the etheric body has been lifted out. Therefore, the physical and chemical substances now follow their own laws, [the body can no longer hold together] - and here we have set out the fact of death and the fact of sleeping and waking. Only when we know these are we able to understand the primitive conditions of man, then we can take a look at the origin of man.

Let us now take up our concept again. [I cannot talk about all the details today, but only give a sketch of human origin]. Let us go back to a distant past. We find a human ancestor.

But what did he look like? Quite different from today's man. Everything, absolutely everything in humanity has developed, including the conditions of sleeping and waking. They have only become what they are today, were quite different in times gone by. Spiritual science indicates that the distribution of sleep and waking as it is today only occurred relatively late [in the development of the earth]; the rule of sleep was quite different in the distant past. Man slept much longer, [was in an unconscious state, that is,] his astral body was much longer outside the physical body than it is today. And because it had the opportunity to be out longer and the waking state was shorter, this astral body had little to do with mending [the physical body]. The fatigue was not so great.

Today the night state is filled with mending [the physical body]. We only see something in our dreams, like fragments from the unconscious state. In ancient times of the distant past, not all of the work of the [astral body] had to be used to repair the physical body. Therefore, [even if it was dull and dim], this [astral] body [with the ego] was clairvoyant to a certain extent. In a way, this astral body, which was not so intimately connected to the physical and etheric bodies, could see into its surroundings. It saw what was around it in the spiritual world. However, what was it like, [looking into the world here? What is left behind?] There is dreaming. But dreaming is something that is only a very weak, [corrupted] echo of an [ancient], dim clairvoyance of all humanity, just as we have certain organs in us that used to have their function, [for example, certain] muscles near the ear. [Those beings in the animal kingdom that have remained at this level still have these muscles to move their ears.] Such organs, [which today have no function but which had a function in earlier stages of development], are called atavisms. One such atavism is dreaming. In the distant past, in the distant past of humanity, it was not what it is today, but something that brought man into real contact with his surroundings. As strange as it may seem to materialistic thinkers, I would like to give you an [unreadable] and describe a little [how it was] back then. In those ancient times, when man was in that half-asleep state, he could not perceive man in the way that he [could perceive the external natures, but he perceived] what lived in the soul of [other] people. When he – [the other] – was awake and thinking bad thoughts, then he [perceived this evil feeling, it] rose [like a kind of luminous body] for the consciousness at that time as a process of perception, a color image for the state of mind of the other.

In this way, people perceived the spiritual in their environment. [Of course, for materialistic thinkers this is something quite foolish. But the reasons that can be given against it are well known to the spiritual researchers themselves. So: Man was predisposed to be able to perceive in dreams. But it does not matter what one dreams; if a dream reflects reality, then it is real perception. [But if it is perceived in a dream, it is not yet bad. ... We have to imagine these ancient dreams as a much more vital state, showing a spiritual world around man that also exists today, but which he can no longer see because he has lost the ancient clairvoyance, but will learn to see again in the future.

Now we have described this person from the distant past. His astral body was essentially [more powerful], more substantial, more alive than it is now. Man has acquired this [external sensory] perception through his prolonged dwelling in the physical body. [But there is an original state of man in which the astral body was more outside the physical and etheric bodies than it is today.]

Let us realize what the astral body can still do in the physical body under certain circumstances, even today. It cannot do much today, but it can do something. When you feel a sense of shame in your soul and you blush, the blushing is a purely physical process, and what is it the result of? Of a process in the astral body.

The impression that caused the feeling of shame – [a reality of the imagination, an emotional reality] – has caused a feeling in the astral body [and] this feeling [has driven the blood to the surface, causing the blush of shame to appear here]. You can see how the blood could be set in motion by processes in the astral body through one process or another. [Today, there is very little that the astral body can do, but in the past it had great power.] In ancient times, the relationship between the astral body and the physical body was quite different. Not only could the astral body control the physical body in the minor way in which it [illegible] encountered the blood, but it had the ability to transform this physical body itself in terms of its form. At that time, when the astral body was still outside, [he had] not only the task of [removing the physical substances of] fatigue, but [illegible] that clairvoyant ability could [re-form the physical body].

Today [man] has a different forehead. [Certain animals still have that forehead formation and [illegible] formation corrupted. Man] has pushed it forward through forces that were in this astral body. [We can visualize what pushed this human forehead forward.] It was only when man learned to walk upright and move upright that he learned to imagine and feel the starry sky, that which is above, in a certain way. The animal, with its eyes directed downwards or straight ahead, does not have these impressions. When [humans] began to measure the space between the stars, namely at the time when humans had clairvoyant vision, [what was absorbed there] pushed the forehead forward, causing the brain to develop into the kind of convolutions that humans have today in terms of their abilities. This astral body is the creator of our forebrain and helped create [the anterior brain] [in adaptation to the external world]. Thus we can literally see how the astral body helped create the physical body.

Just as the astral body today transforms only a pale face into a red face [when shame is driven into the face], so in ancient times it shaped [the brain] out of this [primordial form] [into its present form]. Those beings in our line of ancestors who acquired this ability ascend to humans. Those who did not acquire this ability do not ascend to humanity, but condense. [Thus] an earlier stage of development ossified, corrupted, [and shows itself to us in a corrupted state]. Man must never be derived from today's ape, which has never been able to let these powers of the astral body take effect on it. But now we ask, if we go back even further, then we come to an even looser connection [to the physical and ether body]. There is less and less of it [the physical and etheric body], therefore the astral body [in the etheric body] is more and more powerful [and more and more powerful] and more and more able to transform the physical body. [At that time, man was gelatinous, like the animal, which is even more gelatinous today.] When man was in a soft state, the astral body could work on him in a powerful way.

[And] so we can go further and further back, to the state where the entire astral body was outside [the physical body], [where the physical body] related to the ether body as [ the body of the snail to the physical house [of the snail] relates, where the astral body /illegible] it, as it were, switches and reworks it, like the snail on the house - the snail does not live in the fabric of the house. [So it belongs to the physical and etheric bodies, but it does not yet live in them; it works on them from the outside; and we find] states, if we go back even further, [where even] the etheric body is not yet in this intimate connection with this physical body, the etheric body is still outside the physical body, and here we come to realize that the members of human nature, [which today in the waking human being are inwardly linked together], in ancient times have joined together. They certainly have a common origin, but despite the fact that they originate from the unified primal being and the unity they form in man is a remarkable one, [they are multi-faceted]. And if we ascribe to the astral body the ability to transform the physical body, what qualities can we ascribe to the [originally] free etheric body? ... /illegible]

[The further we go back in this respect to the original properties of this body, the better we get to know the mysterious workings in development]; if we can ascribe to the astral body the [shaping and reshaping, the] transformation [and reworking of the physical body], then we must ascribe to the ether body the material creation of the physical body. What is our physical body around us today, how did it come into being? We can visualize this with an image.

[The] humanities scholar [is not able to present everything with [illegible] through images. Today, what is tangible can be presented to everyone with the help of an image, which is something that arouses more associations from a physical-materialistic point of view.

By means of comparison, we can realize how the physical body of man came into being. Today, people believe so easily that what they know as physical contains the origin of the living, but this is again [such a] habit of thought, in truth it is not so. If you [once] deal with the prejudices that today [are said to come from science but do not come from it] ... /gap] If you examine how things are, [and we then only learn the method of how to examine], then you can make clear to yourself by the following comparison how the physical body comes into being.

Take coal, it is a mineral substance today. But long ago it was plants. What is now coal was once present as [graphite-containing] plants [in mighty forests]; the organic has transformed into the inorganic, the plant has become stone, the living has become physical. If you are able to do spiritual scientific research, you can see how all stones were originally living beings. We can investigate and prove that stones, rock crystal, were plants in primeval times, just like stone coal. Just as the mineral part of us originally came to life, so too was the human physical body once separated from the etheric body. As you see today] the many coral animals that build the coral reef, the physical, [you see how they grow out of it], see how the living creatures work this physical reef out of their own body. So in a time of man [ancestor] only this etheric body was present, [the astral body, and the] physical body is out of the etheric body [through a process] like ice from the water; the etheric body is a condensation, in condensed, other form, and there we come back to the original state of humanity.

Where only the etheric body existed, there was no physical human being at all. How did the physical human being begin? There was the astral and the etheric human being, who preceded the [physical] human being. The first physical human being was a small physical inclusion, like when chalk balls split off from [an animal, you see the animal and then a small chalk ball], or [you have] a container of water here: first [a small grain of ice forms], then it increases in size [little by little].

So man's entire physical nature was not there at all. It formed in the first place [as a small, tiny thing] within the spiritual, etheric [and astral], and] what now detached itself from the etheric and astral and back, was doomed, it began to develop in a descending direction, [and became the lowest living creatures]. But what was seized by the forces of the etheric and astral bodies developed higher. [Something detached itself from the animal], step by step, until [the stage was reached where] today's man was present; he left beings everywhere in his wake, as a result of the [developmental] steps he has taken. The simplest being that one sees today, which is said to be the progenitor [of humanity], is only a side branch [of human development].

But man [as a spiritual being], as an astral being, precedes all living beings. He is the firstborn as a spiritual being. [The other beings, the imperfect beings, descend] from him [as a spiritual being], who [from the very beginning] has all the potential for the highest perfection [within himself]. So man was there as a spiritual being before he was there as a physical [being]. [So where do we come from? From the world that man does not see]; man does not see the world in which the astral, etheric bodies are at home. In there is the world from which man really comes. Therefore, what is the highest link in man originally comes from him in a mysterious way, [the astral body, the etheric body and] as the last link, the physical body. Man descends from the Divine-Spiritual, [from the spiritual man descends. Only] then do we consider the appearance and descent of man in the right light, when [we] truly [elevate ourselves to spiritual-scientific contemplation. These spiritual-scientific insights can be explained in detail in the course of winter. What now appears as a program will become clear in its details. That will become clear... The physical is born out of the spiritual. The spiritual is something that permeates everything. This has always been felt above all by those who, through their good disposition and insight, had no materialistic mind and no materialistic habits of thought. From the laws that permeate and resound through the whole world as spiritual, from such laws, man appears to spiritual researchers as originating. Thus spiritual research is based on no other point of view than Goethe's, which we have recognized as a genuine spiritual researcher and which he has expressed in the most diverse forms, including in that wonderful series of poems entitled “God and the World” [is entitled], in which there is a beautiful poem, ‘Orphic Primal Words’, of which today we are particularly interested in the first stanza, because it shows us how Goethe was aware of the facts we have been talking about today. He wants to show us how that which is spiritual in man, which comes from higher laws [than from physical laws, which are explained by external sensory facts], cannot be fragmented by the powers of the temporal, cannot be fragmented by the forces of the sensual. [This is what he wants to express when he] connects an ancient, sacred idea to [his own dismemberment]: I and spiritual people are not bound to the physical laws of the body, which they themselves have produced, built, transformed, they are eternal and unchanging in their essence, in that they transform and remodel that which they themselves [as the ego and astral body] have produced.

As on the day when you were given to the world
the sun stood in greeting of the planets
You are as ever present and eternal
[according to the law by which you came into being].
You must be so, you cannot escape it,
So said the Sibyls and the seers of old.
And no power and no time dismember
The molded form that lives and develops.