Man, Nature and the Cosmos

GA 91 — 7 August 1905, Haubinda

10. The Elemental Realms

We have come to know the supreme elemental realm as a realm of radiant colors. When we look at the wonderfully glittering world in connection with a state of consciousness, we get a correct mental image of it. It is a consciousness that directly expresses itself. Human consciousness is very subordinate, it only perceives the object from the outside, as in a mirror. The divine consciousness radiates light from itself. It is called emanation, as opposed to evolution, which is development.

Now, if something emanates from itself, it can be thought that the further the rays go, the lower its consciousness becomes,

The amount of light that used to be in the points is now distributed around the perimeter. By the fact that the light becomes thinner and thinner, the consciousness becomes smaller and smaller, and thereby the first elementary realm passes into the second. This gives rise to the material - a consciousness that becomes weaker and weaker. In the third elemental realm, we have an even more attenuated consciousness, that is, an even more intensifying material.

When the circle spreads out so that a straight line is formed, the mineral kingdom is formed. In the mineral kingdom, the radiance has lost its power. But we now have four kingdoms: the first, second, third elemental kingdoms and the mineral kingdom. Consciousness is where it is directly radiant, luminous, with the emanation on one and the same plane. If we go to the second elementary kingdom, the consciousness is one plan higher than the substance. And if we pass into the third elementary kingdom, the consciousness is two planes higher than the substance; and in the mineral kingdom the consciousness is three planes higher than the substance it directs. The curvature of the substance becomes a balancing. If we go further, the consciousness does not move higher, but begins to grasp the substance from the other side. Gravitation arises instead of emanation. Matter clenches again.

On the fifth stage we have the plant kingdom. We are still experiencing gravity. When a stone falls to the earth, it attracts it. This is the same force that actually only really comes into its own in the plant kingdom. If the gravitation advances, the counter image to the second elementary kingdom arises - the animal kingdom. If now the substance moves together again with the consciousness, then we have to do it with the human kingdom.

In the human being the center of gravity is his I, to which he refers everything. There again his center of consciousness coincides with the material. Let us consider the development of man from here:

Saturn: the development of the physical body in the first elementary kingdom. A radiating light vein. When the development comes from Saturn to the Sun, man undergoes this radiance, and the physical body enters the second elemental kingdom; on the Moon, the third elemental kingdom. On Earth, the physical body is in the mineral kingdom.

On Saturn, man does not yet have an etheric body; it develops only on the Sun, it is there in the first elemental kingdom, it is the same radiating entity. On the Moon the etheric body is in the second elementary kingdom, on the Earth it is in the third elementary kingdom.

The astral body is not yet present on Saturn, nor on the Sun. It develops in the first elementary realm on the Moon; on Earth it develops into the second elementary realm. After the astral body we come to the ego. This enters the first elemental realm only on earth.

When we now ascend, we come to the development on Jupiter. There the physical body of man passes from the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom. In exchange, the etheric body will move up into the mineral kingdom. The astral body moves up from the second to the third elementary kingdom, the ego from the first to the second elementary kingdom.

On Venus, the physical body moves on into the animal kingdom, that is, it is master of pleasure and pain. The etheric body is then in the plant kingdom, the astral body in the mineral kingdom, and the ego is in the third elemental kingdom.

Now we move on to Vulcan. There it[, the physical body,] is in the actual human kingdom, the etheric body is then in the animal kingdom, the astral body in the plant kingdom, and the ego in the mineral kingdom. To be in the mineral kingdom means: to bring forth such matter from itself, as for example this table.

It brings forth physical matter around itself. Then it makes plants grow upon it; makes animals walk upon it. And at last it calls forth man. The ego has then become planetary spirit itself.

All planets are mineral-become “I”s.

[What is radiant planetary matter are I's become mineral.]