Man, Nature and the Cosmos
GA 91 — 12 August 1905, Haubinda
15. Forms of Consciousness
In addition to the seven known forms of consciousness, there are five more, twelve levels in total. The consciousness of deep trance, dreamless sleep consciousness, dream sleep consciousness, waking consciousness, psychic consciousness, super-psychic consciousness, spiritual consciousness.
Spiritual consciousness on Vulcan is so high that the person becomes a kind of creator. But what about the higher beings that have begun to develop even higher abilities than merely knowing, doing and creating everything? With spiritual consciousness, the person would be a magician, he could create beings. But there is one thing he still cannot do: emanate from his own being, give off substance. That is the ability of the five higher levels of consciousness: the ability not only to shine, to radiate light, but to radiate matter, to give off one's own substance.
We can distinguish between emanating consciousness, perceiving consciousness and active consciousness, that is, consciousness that creates forms. When we create forms, substance is already there; we merely give it form. When we perceive, form is already there; we emanate images. When we have emanating consciousness, we let the substance itself flow out.
The actual emanating consciousness is the stages twelve, eleven, ten and nine of consciousness; the stages of perceiving consciousness are eight, seven, six, five, and of forming consciousness four, three, two, one. Before something is formed or perceived, something must first be there, and therefore the emanating consciousness first has the task of radiating the material for such a world, of spinning the material out of itself, so to speak. This is called the 'first emanation': the emanating consciousness emits the substance. The substance should not be underestimated; it arises from the sacrifice of a higher consciousness. Where does the substance come from? It comes from where the future substance will come from, it comes from consciousness.
The second thing that happens is that the forming consciousness intervenes; that is the 'second emanation'. And when this forming consciousness has created forms, the perceiving consciousness can take them up – the 'third radiation'. The first emanation that emanates the material is also called the third logos; the forming one that builds the plastic figures is called the second logos; and the perceiving consciousness is called the first logos. Christian esotericism calls the world of the third logos, in which the gods sacrifice their consciousness, radiate: the heavenly world; the world of the second logos: the underworld; and the world of the first logos: the human world.
Let us apply these general concepts to our own humanity. On Saturn, we have the emanation of a matter; on the Moon, the emanation of a spirit. The spirits of will emanate matter out of their consciousness. The human body is formed out of this matter. The primal forces – Asuras – first embody themselves in it; they become human, so to speak. [Christian Science also calls the spirits of the personality primal forces.] On the sun, it is the spirits, the Sons of Fire, the Agnishvattas, who become men. On the moon, the spirits of the twilight, the Lunar Pitris, become men. On the earth, men become real men. On Jupiter, lower beings become men – these are the evil ones. Man rises higher, becomes an angel in a certain sense; on Venus he becomes an archangel and on Vulcan a primal power.
We now have to fall back on radiating matter on the part of the spirits of will. From this matter the physical body is formed on Saturn, transformed on the Sun, on the Moon and on the Earth, and now it begins to crumble, to peel off from the human being - when he becomes an angel, an angel of light. We have an analogy in the coral colony; it is rooted in the water, more and more lime is deposited on it, and more and more little animals form on it, which die; the coral grows as a result. In this way our planet will deposit more and more coal.
Nothing is without matter; when one loses itself, a new one, albeit thinner, must take its place. People move into the angelic stage, lose physical matter, but maintain the etheric body. Etheric matter forms the body up to Vulcan, where it loses itself, as does physical matter here.
The other beings, who were already higher, will naturally continue to ascend. The spirits of twilight – Lunar Pitris – are on Earth one step higher than humans, and accordingly, they progress upwards. This level of entities will not only be endowed with spiritual consciousness on Vulcan, but also on Venus. On the level before that, on Jupiter, the Agnishvattas – archangels – have spiritual consciousness. And still one level earlier, on Earth, the elemental forces – Asuras – have their spiritual consciousness, so that in the normal course on Earth, those spirits of personality who had reached their humanity on Saturn attain their spiritual consciousness. They are endowed with free will, so they can stray here. Therefore, here on Earth, the battle takes place between the elemental forces that turn away and those who follow their ascent. This battle between the elemental forces of light and those of darkness is described in the Bhagavad Gita and the Book of Enoch. It takes place at the moment of human incarnation. Two elemental forces are born, one group under the leadership of the descending one, another group under the leadership of the ascending one; the latter is called Christ by Christian esotericism.
[Do you remember the image?] The plant represents the inverted human being. In the plant, the head is directed downwards; in the human being, it is directed upwards. The incarnation is an inversion. As a lower being, the human being was directed head downwards; later, he turned upwards. When we remember Hephaestus, it is an image of the crumbling away of the parts that are directed downwards. Hephaistos is wounded by the evil leader. The good primal power — Christ — shines forth from the earth from humanity in the forefront with a consciousness that will only be granted to man himself on Vulcan. Christ is the first to reveal himself from the new matter emanating from earthly existence. The first to manifest in the new matter independently of the old matter is Christ. This manifestation is called: the birth out of the virgin matter [or out of the Virgin]; out of the second Logos, the beginning of the Gospel of John.
Thus, the appearance of Christ on earth is the center of the whole evolution. It is a cosmic event that has significance for the whole evolution.