Lemuria and the Ensoulment of Humanity

GA 94 — 7 July 1906, Leipzig

Lecture X

We have traced the development of humanity back to Atlantis and now want to move on to Lemuria and talk about the Lemurian human beings. These people were the first to represent the actual human being, whose body is permeated by a soul. Let us first consider the nature of the Lemurian continent and the type of human beings who inhabited it. In Lemurian times, everything was filled with a watery mass from which islands protruded, all of which were volcanic. Typical of Lemuria is the changeability in nature, in forms, and in life. There was a rapid transformation of individual forms and species. The soul characteristics of the Atlanteans were even more pronounced in the Lemurians, especially the will, which had the greatest influence on the formation of the physical body. This itself consisted only of gelatinous, transparent substances into which what are now bones and muscles first had to be built. An organ that plays a very important role today, the lung, was then only in its very early stages. This is very significant, because the formation of the lungs is connected with the ensoulment of human beings. This ensoulment did not happen in an instant, but took place over very long periods of time.

What relationship did the human soul have to this body, which according to our present-day concepts was very misshapen, before it ensouled the physical body of that time? It had the same relationship that it has to it today during sleep: it was outside the body, hovering around it on a Earth that was still permeated by powerful life currents at that time. The Lemurian was constantly in a sleep-like state, comparable to our dream consciousness, in which a vivid world of images presents itself. This was the only way he could perceive; he knew the meaning of the individual images and thus knew the spiritual nature of things.

A great moment in his development was when he used his body for perception for the first time. Human beings moved by floating. They had a special organ for this in their body cavity, a kind of swim bladder. Under the influence of the soul floating around them, this swim bladder gradually developed into lungs. As human beings began to breathe with their lungs, their souls entered their bodies. With the air he breathed, man actually breathed in his soul. This process is described literally in Genesis in the six days of creation by the sentence: And God breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.

Outwardly, man at that time looked something like a very soft-bodied lindworm – snake does not quite capture the reality. His companions were toads, fish, frogs, and so on, in short, a primitive world of reptiles and amphibians, whose present-day descendants, however, can no longer be compared to them, for they are very degenerate descendants. There were no mammals at that time. No remains of those animals or of the humans of that time can be found today.

How should we think about the relationship between animals and humans? - The theory of descent from apes can be considered outdated, as it is based on a false line of reasoning. Imagine a morally depraved person and a morally upright person. The claim that humans descended from apes is similar to saying that the perfect descended from the imperfect. They do not need to be descended from each other, but they can have a common father and be brothers. One develops upward, the other declines into decadence. The relationship between apes and humans should be viewed in the same way. At the beginning of Atlantis, the human form was still ape-like, and in Lemuria, the soul took possession of an even more imperfect body. This body then developed upward. The ape-like forms, however, have partly fallen into decadence and become today's apes. Apes are therefore the physical brothers of humans who have fallen into decadence. In the Atlantean period, a branching took place, a divergence within the human species: one main branch developed upward into today's humans, the other downward into today's apes. Thus, all the animals that live around us are humans who have been cast out into degeneration. Only through the sacrifice of certain beings is the ascent of others possible. The higher expels the lower in order to be able to ascend even higher. Later, compensation takes place for those who have been cast out.

In this context, we must mention a cosmic event of the greatest significance, without which the incorporation of the soul could not have taken place at all. This is the departure of the moon from the earth. The moon split off from the earth and formed a secondary planet. Previously, the moon and earth were one planet. Thus, the development of the earth and the development of humans are closely related. What the astronomer sees of the moon is not the whole moon, for every thing in the world also has a soul. So the moon also has its soul. The moon left the earth with all its powers, with its entire astral aura. This astral aura of the moon is closely connected with everything that is called fertilization and procreation. This was still known in the ancient Greek mysteries. The Lemurian period marked the beginning of dual sexuality; before that, humans were hermaphrodites. There was no act of procreation or fertilization; reproduction took place in a manner that has been preserved in certain lower organisms. The separation of the sexes coincides with the separation of the moon. This applies to all living beings. At that time, certain forces separated from the earth, which had given humans the ability to produce offspring without another being. These forces were separated by the separation of the moon. At that time, the earth and moon revolved around the sun. However, the moon retained the movement of the earth-moon planet at that time by not rotating around its own axis like the earth. Just as today's moon always shows the same side to the Earth, its “sun,” and never turns its back, so too did the Earth-moon planet always show the same side to the sun. The sun, moon, and planets are also inhabited by beings.

In even earlier times, the sun, moon, and Earth were one body, and everything that is now humans, animals, and plants still lived together with the sun at that time. At that time, humans were still of a very ethereal form and very fine matter and lived a kind of plant existence. Only later did animal and human forms develop; all creatures were still on the same level of plant existence. These sun plants were, of course, very different in nature from today's plants. But one can still say that they strove with their blossoms toward the sun, that is, toward the center of the planet, and stretched their roots upward. At the moment when the sun was separated from the earth, the plants turned completely around, turning their blossoms back toward the sun. From then on, the blossom stretched upward and the root downward. The animals only turned at a right angle when the moon left the earth. Man turned completely around, so that he is an inverted plant, just as the plant is an inverted human being. The life soul passes through the three natural kingdoms. That is why Plato says: The world soul is attached to the world cross. And the human soul is also attached to the cross, in that it must pass through the three natural kingdoms. This is the meaning of the cross in the ancient mysteries. The entire process of education exists for the sake of human beings in terms of world history. Life can only arise from life, but life excludes non-life. Everything inanimate has arisen from the living. Minerals are deposits from the living. But the living comes from the spiritual. So it is the spirit that is the origin from which everything comes. And man is the firstborn of creation. He has separated the animals, plants, and minerals. The lower always arises from the higher.

Tomorrow we will talk about the conditions under which humans attain higher levels of knowledge.