Man, Nature and the Cosmos

GA 91 — 2 September 1905, Berlin

23. Mars, Mercury and Jupiter's Effect on the Formation of the Human Ego

The various limbs of the human being are related to the seven successive great planets. We must be clear that the human body as such has the physical degrees, then the etheric body and the astral body. Developed they have on Saturn, Sun, Moon.

Let us realize for once that something also had to have been already present when the Saturn chain began. We must ask ourselves: How did the physical body originate? This has become from an astral body. It is divided into these three parts, as it were like pieces of ice are condensed in water. We can regard this physical body as a condensation. It was exactly an imprint of the preceding divine astral body. During the whole development of Saturn this physical body gradually subdivides. Little by little the seven sensory germs of man work themselves out. On the sun the etheric body separates. This division causes at the same time that the senses, which were formed earlier on Saturn, attain a certain ability. Earlier they were only physical apparatuses on Saturn. Because of the addition of the ether on the sun, the eye shines, the ear sounds. So that we can say that the physical body and the etheric body work together on the sun, while a rest of the astral body remains. On the moon, a new system is added: masculine and feminine, in such a way that on the moon the physical body is always the masculine, the etheric body the feminine. The astral body is neutral.

Now we have on the Moon three bodies sharply differentiated: physical body, etheric body and astral body, which come to Earth as the fruit of the Moon. What must happen? Man must become self-aware, he must get an "I". He could not get an "I" if only the forces were in him which come from the moon; it must come from outside. It is the force that comes from Jupiter. From the next planet we will enter comes the force that forms our I. The power center of Jupiter is already there, the earth Jupiter not yet. The beings that have now reached Jupiter draw man after them and now give him the power of the ego. The astral body must now first be made suitable to become the bearer of this I, and is now endowed with two kinds of forces: with Mars forces and with Mercury forces. The Mars forces first make it free from the Moon forces, and the Mercury forces prepare it for the next three planets; they make it suitable for ascension.

What becomes of the astral body when it has absorbed the Martian forces, we call the sentient soul; when it has absorbed the Mercury forces: the mind soul, and the move to Jupiter: consciousness soul.

Now a great change has taken place with the astral body. This revolution causes its whole nature to change, it is split into two. In the astral body of the present earth man the lunar forces are still present: This is the lower pole of the astral body; and that striving towards Jupiter is the higher pole - they are the bodily and the spiritual pole. What goes on with the bodily pole is subject to birth and death. The spiritual pole is still a baby, gradually forming and becoming the causal body. What the latter has achieved remains, while the lower pole is always building up its physical and etheric body anew. This lower pole of the astral body is even now hermaphroditic, male-female. And while on the moon the physical body was always male, the etheric body always female, on earth this changes in such a way that the human being is male in one incarnation and female in the other. Likewise, the etheric body alternates. When the physical body is passive, the etheric body is active. The forces are polar.

Now with the etheric body, namely when it is active - masculine - the quality which Plato calls courage is exhibited, and we therefore actually find that certain acts of courage, especially when one speaks of love, are more exhibited in the female sex than in the male, while in the average man in love the receiving is more apparent.

The changes in the astral body itself, brought about by Mars and Mercury forces and the Jupiter forces - what are they like? When the divine entities recognized the time to be right, they brought down the Mars forces and put them into man. These forces are preferably sound and sonic. In contrast, the Mercury forces are preferably forces of light, color phenomena. The astral body becomes luminous in a new way. About the middle of the Atlantean race the Mercury forces begin to work. There also the one eye turns into the two. The Mercury forces illuminate the astral body, the Jupiter forces penetrate it with forces similar to the electric ones. There the foundation is laid for what has been described above in relation to coal.

Sonic Forces Mars Forces - Sentient Soul

Light forces Mercury forces - mind soul

Electric forces Jupiter forces - consciousness soul