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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

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Now the Sun-Spirits, into whose immediate sphere this undivided human being has entered, are able to act upon it in quite a different manner from their previous influence from without on the Moon. Man is now in a more psycho-spiritual environment. Owing to this, the Lords of Wisdom are able to effect something momentous. They imbue and inspire him with wisdom. He thereby becomes in a certain sense an independent soul. And to the influence of these beings is added that of the Lords of Motion. They act principally on the astral body, so that under their influence it produces psychic activity, and an etheric body filled with wisdom. The latter is the foundation of that which has been described above as the rational or intellectual soul in contemporary man, whereas the astral body, inspired by the Lords of Motion, is the germ of the sentient soul. And because all this is effected in man's being in his progressed condition of independence, these germs of the rational and sentient soul appear as the expression of the Spirit-Self. In this connection the mistake must not be made of thinking that at this period of evolution the Spirit-Self was something separate from the intellectual and sentient souls. The latter are only the expression of the Spirit-Self, which signifies their higher unity and harmony.

It is especially significant that the Lords of Wisdom intervene at this period in the manner described. For they do this not only with regard to humanity but also for the benefit of the other kingdoms which have been elaborated on the Moon. Upon the reunion of Sun and Moon these lower kingdoms are drawn into the Sun sphere. Everything in them which was physical becomes etheric. There are, therefore, minela-plants and plant-animals now in the Sun, just as there is humanity there. But those other creatures are still endowed with their own laws of being. They therefore feel like strangers in their environment. They came upon the scene with a nature but little in harmony with their surroundings. But as they have become etheric, the activity of the Lords of Wisdom may also extend to them. Everything which has come from the Moon into the Sun now becomes pervaded with the forces of the Lords of Wisdom. Hence what is developed out of the Sun-Moon organism during this period of evolution may be called in occult science the "Cosmos of Wisdom."

When, therefore, after an interval of rest, our Earth system appears as the successor of this Cosmos of Wisdom, all the beings newly emerging on the earth, developing out of their Moon-germs, prove to be filled with wisdom. And this is the reason why earthly man when contemplating the things around him, is able to discover the wisdom concealed in their inner nature. The wisdom in each leaf of a plant, in every bone in animal and man, in the marvelous structure of the brain and heart, fills us with admiration. If man requires wisdom to understand things, and therefore gathers wisdom from them, this shows that there is wisdom in the things themselves. For however much man might have striven to understand things by means of wise perceptions, he could not draw wisdom from them unless it had first been put into them. He who tries by means of wisdom to understand things, assuming at the same time that wisdom had not first been concealed within them, may just as reasonably believe that he can empty water out of a glass into which it has not first been poured. As will be shown later in this book, the Earth is the "old Moon" risen again. And it appears as an organism full of wisdom, because it was permeated by the Lords of Wisdom and their forces during the epoch that has been described.