Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge II

GA 90b — 18 March 1905, Cologne

XXVI. On Planetary Evolution

First of all, one must consider the various states of consciousness through which man has passed. He is now in the state of bright day-consciousness. Before that, he has passed through three other states of consciousness. The first consciousness was a kind of dull all-consciousness, such as the stone that lives in space has today, but brooding in a dull state of consciousness. This condition can still be caused pathologically even now. In a deep trance, people often begin to draw world systems; but they have no control over their consciousness.

In the second state of consciousness, that of dreamless sleep, man can perceive everything alive. Every night, man undergoes this state. He is then in a kind of plant trance; he carries out the [vegetative] functions quite well during this time. The state of consciousness is that of dream sleep, which is much lighter than the previous one; but even then, man does not receive any sensory impressions as he does in the waking state. Then people did not see things, but an image of the soul arose in them.

Now we find ourselves in the fourth state of consciousness. The previous states of consciousness were linked to other planets just as our waking consciousness is linked to the earth. Man is a product, born out of the circumstances in which he moves. Esoterically, the first planet is Saturn, the second the Sun, the third the Moon and the fourth is the Earth. On Saturn, man has already gone through the various states of form. In the middle of the first round - that is, of the first elementary realm - Saturn became physical. With Saturn, it depends on the first round. The following six rounds on Saturn are not of particular importance for humans. Other beings from earlier world cycles have completed their development there. During the seventh round on Saturn, humans had reached the point of becoming physical, but they had a body that was merely oval-shaped, spherical. This state was subject to neither birth nor death. This physical body went through the entire Saturn development.

One could imagine that the whole of Saturn is composed of individual human spheres, a mulberry; a morula stage was Saturn. The whole thing slept from one pralaya to another manvantara, the solar condition. There the human being was in a kind of plant trance. It was only during the second round of the sun that man attained the new. There his consciousness developed into a kind of human plant trance. There, man no longer had an immortal physical body. The whole was an all-life, a living organism that secreted new human spheres from itself. The third to seventh rounds on the sun are not important for humans, but only for other beings. On the sun, a second realm is emerging alongside the human realm, namely a special mineral realm. The minerals there are still growing, they are still more plant-like. They are still so similar to the human kingdom and not yet as separate as they are now.

After a pralaya, the moon manvantara begins. This is when the image consciousness of dream sleep develops. In the third moon round, this actual moon stage is developed. Man then becomes an image-conscious being, outwardly like a kind of animal state. In the first round on the moon, he has repeated Saturn; in the second round, the sun. In the third round of the moon, he develops the new, the actual moon state. The fourth to seventh rounds on the moon are not of great importance to him. They are a descent on the moon.

Now the development of the earth begins. In the first round, there is a repetition of the Saturn condition, in the second round a repetition of the sun condition, and in the third round there is a repetition of the moon condition. In the fourth round, the actual earth condition occurs, the state of waking consciousness. In the fourth round, the human being passes through the state of the unmanifest form, then through the astral state, and finally through the physical. Now, in the first round on earth, he has gone through the stage of Saturn, the mineral kingdom; in the second round, the stage of the sun, the plant kingdom; in the third round, the stage of the moon, the animal kingdom. In the fourth round, the human being proper emerges.

The external differences between the four stages are as follows: On Saturn, there is a silent, dark existence. One would not have seen anything at that time, not even clairvoyantly. On the sun, everything begins to shine. There, the spiritual resounding begins. This resounding of the sun is transferred to the human being in the solar round - the second round on earth. In the second round, the human being is a resounding being. Everyone received their own tone. Every person has their own special tone, which signifies them in the world. They still have this tone, it resounds within.

On the moon, he was physically a luminous being. What he is today only in the astral, that was the physical of the human being then, namely, luminous. He was a star, a luminous being on the moon. This state was repeated on earth in the third round. In the fourth round, the new was added on earth.

After passing through the arupa state, the rupa-mental state and the astral state, in the fourth round man became physical. It was only in the finest physical etheric matter that man developed, in the polaric race, at the beginning of our physical development. The polaric people were ether people. They repeated the Saturn stage once more. They were spheres at the beginning of the physical formation of the earth and immortal. An immortal race inhabited the pole at that time. Then man passed into the sun stage. Before that, everything was still dissolved, ethereal. Then man separated himself as an air being in the Hyperborean period. He formed a kind of sphere that sounded, vibrated, trembled and reacted to impact and pressure internally. This is how he perceived the changes in the outside world. The solar stage of the Hyperborean period came to an end when the finest substances withdrew, leaving only coarser substances that began to glow.

At the beginning of the Hyperborean Age, the present physical sun emerged from the earth. This caused a tremendous catastrophe on the earth. All life was drawn out.

Now man begins to reproduce in two sexes. At the beginning of the Lemurian period, that is, during the third root race, the coarser substances emerged from the earth that the earth could no longer use. That is the physical moon that was then separated from the earth. Again, a great catastrophe took place on the earth. Now all beings had their own warmth. Until then, all humans were in a kind of light state. In the Lemurian period, the fourth stage was that of intrinsic warmth.

Man was a sounding being on the sun, a luminous being on the moon, and became an intrinsically warm being on the earth. All animals that have intrinsic warmth only split off from humans after that. It was only through intrinsic warmth that Kama could move into humans. Only humans and animals with their own warmth have Kama. The fish is still a sleeper today, dispassionate. From the middle of the Lemurian period, man himself becomes inwardly warm, kamic, passionate. In the past, the maturing of man was brought about from the outside. At that time, the general warmth incubated man, the warmth that surrounded the earth. Man then absorbed this warmth within himself.

This is what the Prometheus myth points to. The warmth was brought into man from heaven. Man became a fire being. In this way he acquired passion; before that he had no passion, no inner warmth of his own. That is why it is said of the earlier time: “The Spirit of God brooded over the waters - human souls.” This was the warmth that brings everything to maturity.

Now, on the other hand, man is a creature with its own warmth. These conditions had not existed before. Man had learned the earlier conditions on earlier planets. He learned this new condition on earth. Now the earth was left to its own devices after it had acquired its own warmth.

But there were great leaders who could give humanity a jolt. Such beings studied the conditions that were beyond the conditions of the earth. These were the Manus, leaders, divine beings. They had to study a planet from which one could learn what the earth still needed. The planet was Mars. Mars looks to the clairvoyant as if people had already lived on it. The discarded Kama shells can be found on Mars. These Kama shells look like a kind of snake skin that has been left behind. It is Kama that is capable of being fertilized with the spirit. Such a stage had to be studied on another planet, where the beings had just reached the point of having left this stage behind.

Another stage was found by the Manus on Mercury; the Kama-Manas stage. This was necessary for the Earth. The Kama stage of Mars had to be fertilized with the Manas stage of Mercury. Repetitions for the Earth were the Saturn, Sun and Moon stages. The Mars and Mercury stages were added. The influx of Mercury forces is represented by Mercury's snake staff. The Hermes staff represents the impact of the spirit's monad.

The clairvoyant does not count the Earth itself in the planetary development. He says it is Mars and Mercury together. The Earth still has three rounds to go through. These are important for the following planetary stages. In the fifth round, it enters the plant kingdom. It then lives in a kind of paradise, in the Garden of Eden. There the lowest realm will be the plant kingdom. Everything that man produces there will be a plant. In this way, man prepares what will be on the next planet. This next planet is esoterically called Jupiter. It is the Jupiter that will arise from the earth. The sixth round, the animal kingdom, is a preparation for the sixth planet, Venus - so-called because of its similarity to Venus. On the seventh planet, Vulcan, completion follows. No mere physical brain can conceive the state of the last planet. Only for the clairvoyant arises the possibility of knowing something about Vulcan.

The great sages have written down this planetary development, and everyone can read it in the days of the week. You start with Saturday: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Mars day, Mercury day, Jupiter day, Venus day and Saturday again - Vulcan. Mars day and Mercury day stand together for the earth. Mars corresponds to the god Tin and Mercury to the Wotan of the Germans - see Tacitus' Germania. In all nations, the days of the week have names that reflect occult development. Thursday, Jupiter Day, represents the future; therefore, it is especially sacred to occultists. For the occultist, the next Saturday would always be Vulcan Day, which coincides with Saturday. The periods of time that are traversed on the planets cover many millions of years. On Earth, everything that has already occurred is repeated. Every idea is a repetition, every work of art is a repetition. The outer, bright consciousness of the day is repetitive. On the next planet, a psychic state of consciousness occurs. It differs from the present state in that the human being enters a luminous state from the state of his own warmth, developing his own light. There he consciously becomes a luminous being. There he can consciously produce glowing colors. There he can transform the light into a glowing imagination.

In the fifth round of the fifth planet, the human being will have become a luminous form, an apparition. Today, the clairvoyant can produce glowing forms in the astral realm; in doing so, he anticipates the state of the fifth round of the fifth planet. But he must work with earthly powers. [...]

On the sixth planet, super-physical consciousness sets in. This is magical. The created being of light remains. There, the human being has a magical consciousness. On Vulcan, he will have reached the consciousness of the seventh stage; he will be spiritual. This can only be expressed in a symbolic language, but not in an ordinary language. From Earth onwards, the last rounds are preparations for the following planets. The deeper essence in man goes through this whole development. In the spherical being of Saturn, man was already present as a point. A thread runs through all states of consciousness. Man goes through all stages.

Since the Martian stage, since man has warm blood, his own warmth, conflict has also arisen. Before that, he was a peaceful being, had no passion. In the lower animal species with cold blood, there is no conflict - Kessler, a Russian naturalist, has confirmed this. The thread that was already found on Saturn and that extends to Vulcan is called the Pitri being.

The smallest expresses the greatest. When man got blood, his astral body began to take on the form that it now has. It developed through five races in the Lemurian period, then through seven in the Atlantean period, and finally through five in the Aryan period. In the races, there is a repetition of the earlier conditions. The religious consciousness of the ancient Indian people recognized the One God; this is the germ of all later religions. This was a repetition of the polar stage of the earth. In the Persian race we find a repetition of the Hyperborean stage, and in the Chaldeans and Egyptians the trinity, a repetition of the Lemurian time with the impact of Kama in the fourth sub-race of the fourth stage of the earth. Kama-Manas joins them.