This Classic work is now copyright expired and therefore in the public domain.

An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

page 38 of 63 | page 1 | An Outline of Occult Science - home

When the human body became independent, the previous close union of the earth-man with the psycho-spiritual world was to a certain extent dissolved. Henceforth, when the soul left the body, the latter, in a way, continued to live. If evolution had gone on advancing in this manner, the earth would have hardened under the influence of its solid elements. To the eyes of the seer who looks back on those conditions, human bodies, when abandoned by their souls, appear to become more and more solidified. And after a time the human souls returning to earth would have found no available material with which to combine. All the substances available for man would have been used up in filling the earth with the hardened, wood-like remains of incarnations.

Then an event took place which gave a new turn to the whole evolution. Everything in the solid earthly substance which could contribute to permanent induration was eliminated. At this point our present moon left the earth. And what had previously directly conduced to a moulding of permanent forms, now operated from the moon indirectly and in a diminished degree. The higher beings, on whom that moulding of forms depended, had resolved to exercise their influences upon their earth no longer from its interior, but from without. By this means there was brought about in the bodily structure of man a difference which must be called the beginning of the separation into a male and a female sex.

The finely constituted human forms which formerly inhabited the earth, had produced through cooperation of the two forces within themselves, that of the embryo and that of the animating force, the new human form, their descendant. These descendants are now transformed. In one group the animating power of the psycho-spiritual element was paramount; in another the animating germinal force. This was caused by the weakening of the power of the solid element in consequence of the moon's leaving the earth. The reciprocal action of these two forces now became more delicate than it had been before--when it occurred within one single body, consequently the descendant also became more delicate and fine. He entered the earth in a delicate condition, and only gradually incorporated more solid parts within him. In this way the possibility of union with the body was once more given to the human soul returning to earth. It no longer animated the body from without, because that animation took place on the earth itself; but it became united with the body, and enabled it to grow. Of course a certain limit was set to that growth. Through the separation of the moon, the human body had for a time become supple; but the more it continued to grow on the earth, the more the solidifying forces got the upper hand. At length the share borne by the soul in the organization of the body grew less and less, and the body disintegrated when the soul ascended to psycho-spiritual modes of existence. One can trace how the forces gradually acquired by man during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions take part more and more in the progress of man during the described formative periods of the earth. The first part to be kindled by the earth's fire is the astral body, still containing within it the etheric and physical bodies in a state of solution. Then the astral body is organized into a more subtle astral part, the sentient soul, and into a grosser etheric part, which henceforth is in contact with the earth-element; when this occurs, the etheric or vital body, already fore-shadowed, makes its appearance. And while the intellectual and consciousness-souls are being evolved in the astral man, there are incorporated into the etheric body those coarser parts which are susceptible to sound and light.