nd of separation process. The human being existed
in delicate matter, even more delicate than the fire mist. At that time,
the reproduction happened as a kind of detachment. The daughter being
had the same size as the mother being. The solar forces were in those
days vital forces. They overpowered the material. They imprinted forms
to the material. Thus we look, if we go back to the origin of our earth,
at a time in which the human being was surrounded by subtler and subtler
In the end, we get to a
state which only the clairvoyant can envision where the most delicate
etheric corporeality merges into astral being; as a pure soul-being
the human being was placed in the earthly scene. The human beings who
were formed like the physical aura were placed into the earthly scene.
In the soul forces worked that imprinted forms into the matter soaking
up the matter into themselves and forming it so that they became external
seal impressions, a kind of shades of that what the souls were in the
pure soul land. Now we have come back to the stage of our earth where
the human being did not yet have the physical materiality where the
human being only came in as an astral being into this physical world
which was in those days of extremely delicate nature. Now we could go
back to still much older states in which the human being did not yet
have this astral existence. We could go back to purely spiritual states.
Now, however, this should not interest us; for we do not want to pursue
the human being, but the origin of the earth.
A few words more about the
course backward. We meet the human being there, so to speak, still without
material earth. He is not yet embodied in physical corporeality. There
we would have to go back long periods if we wanted to find the human
being at the former developmental stadia. The human being who was placed
as a soul-being on the earth has the ability to draw the substance to
himself in a particular way. If one were able to investigate the etheric
man, one would perceive that his soul was already organised. It could
already create forms. It had to develop for that for long times.
It had already gone through
long developmental states. These have been completed on other heavenly
bodies, of course. How have we to imagine such a development on other
heavenly bodies? All the abilities which the soul had acquired were
in such a way that they could work in the physical. It was led from
former developmental states. The soul had to have already gone through
physical states several times, because only within the physical world
certain abilities can be developed. The human being could not speak
and think today unless he had got into contact with the physical nature.
What we work today becomes our ability later. I have often pointed to
the child that learns to write and read. When the child has grown up,
it can write and read. What was labour, what was intercourse with the
outside world before has disappeared, but the fruit, the result has
remained. This is the ability of writing and reading. What we have in
the soul has originated from the intercourse with the outside world.
The theosophical world view
calls it involution. If the human being again works out from within
what he has acquired, we call it evolution. Between involution and evolution
all life takes place. What the soul has done in the evolution is based
on the fact that the abilities have emerged from the soul. These abilities
were acquired once by involution. This involution took place again in
another physical body. We have there an important moment that has happened
on our earth; this is the moment when the human being was able to become
a warm-blooded being from a cold-blooded one, because the lunar matter
had emerged. This is the important point of the earth development. In
all mystic schools this is emphasised. The human being takes the heat
into him and reworks it inside. The myth which always shows the great
truths figuratively preserved this in the Prometheus legend. Prometheus
got down the fire from the heaven. This is the warmth of the human being
t