x. Extrusion of the Moon

This change in influence goes hand in hand with a transformation of the human form. One half of this form, together with two organs of movement, now becomes the lower half of the body, which functions mainly as the carrier of nutrition and reproduction. The other half of this form is turned upward, so to speak. The remaining two organs of movement become the rudiments of hands. Those organs which previously had served for nutrition and reproduction are transformed into organs of speech and thought. Man has become upright. This is the immediate consequence of the extrusion of the moon. With the moon all those forces disappeared from the earth through which, during his fire mist period, man could still impregnate himself and produce beings like himself without external influence. His whole lower half—that which one often calls the lower nature—now came under the rationally formative influence of the higher entities. What these entities previously could regulate within man, since the mass of forces now split off with the moon was then still combined with the earth, they now have to organize through the interaction of the two sexes. It is therefore understandable that the moon is regarded by the initiates as the symbol of the force of reproduction. After all, these forces do inhere in it, so to speak. The higher beings we have described have an affinity with the moon, are in a sense, moon gods. Before the separation of the moon and, through its power, they acted within man; afterwards, their forces acted from outside on the reproduction of man. One could also say that those noble spiritual forces which previously had acted on the still higher impulses of man through the medium of the fire mist, had now descended in order to exercise their power in the area of reproduction. Indeed, noble and divine forces exercise a regulating and organizing action in this area. With this an important proposition of the secret doctrine has been expressed, namely, the higher, more noble divine forces have an affinity with the— apparently—lower forces of human nature. The word “apparently” must here be understood in its full significance. For it would be a complete misconception of occult truths if one were to see something base in the forces of reproduction as such. Only when man misuses these forces, when he compels them to serve his passions and instincts, is there something pernicious in them, but not when he ennobles them through the insight that a divine spiritual power lies in them. Then he will place these forces at the service of the development of the earth, and through his forces of reproduction he will carry out the intentions of the higher entities we have characterized. Mystery science teaches that this whole subject is to be ennobled, is to be placed under divine laws, but is not to be mortified. The latter can only be the consequence of occult principles which have been understood in a purely external fashion and distorted into a misconceived asceticism.