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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

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Spiritually seen, fear makes its appearance in this way. Within the earth-forces, under whose influence man had come by means of the Luciferian powers, other beings were operating, which had developed irregularly much earlier in the course of evolution than the Luciferian powers. With the earth-forces man admitted into his nature the influence of these other beings. They gave the quality of fear to feelings, which without them would have operated quite differently. They may be called Ahrimanic beings. They are the same that Goethe calls Mephistophelian.

Although the Luciferian influence manifested itself at first only in the most advanced individuals, it soon spread to others. The descendants of the advanced individuals intermingled with the less progressive described above, and in this way the Luciferian force was conveyed to the latter. But the etheric body of these souls returning from the different planets could not be protected to the same extent as that of the descendants of those who remained on earth. The protection of the etheric body of these descendants emanated from an exalted Being in Whom was vested the leadership of the cosmic when the separation of the sun from the earth took place. That Being is the Ruler of the Kingdom of the Sun. With him those lofty spirits, whose cosmic development was sufficiently matured, departed for their dwelling-place in the Sun. But there were other beings who had not reached such a height at the separation of the sun; these were obliged to seek other spheres. It was through their instrumentality that Jupiter and other planets became detached from that general cosmic substance of which, at the outset, the earthly physical organism consisted. Jupiter now became the abode of those beings who were not highly enough developed to live on the sun, and the most advanced of these became the leader. As the Leader of the Sun evolution became the "higher ego" which worked in the etheric body of the descendants of those who had remained on earth, so the Jupiter leader became that "higher ego" which manifested as a common consciousness in certain other human beings. Those were the human beings descending from the intermixing of those who had only appeared on earth at the time of the air-element and had gone over to Jupiter. These human beings may be called, in conformity with occult science, "Jupiter-humanity." They were scions of the human race which had adopted human souls far back in that ancient time; but who, at the beginning of earthly evolution, were not yet mature enough to take part in the first contact with fire. They were souls midway between the human and animal soul-kingdoms.

Now there were other beings who, under the leadership of the greatest one among them had detached Mars from the general cosmic substance, to make it their dwelling place. Under their influence there arose a third kind of humanity, formed by interbreeding,--the "Mars-humanity." (This knowledge throws light upon the origin of the formation of the planets of our solar system; for all the members of that system originated through the various stages of maturity reached by the beings inhabiting them. But of course it is not possible to enter into all the details of cosmic differentiation here.) Those people who felt in their etheric body the influence of the exalted Sun-being Himself may be called "Sun-humanity." The Being Who lived in them as the Higher Ego--of course only in the race, not in the individual,--is the same to Whom various names were given in later times, when man had gained conscious knowledge of Him. It is he Who appears to the human race today as the Christ.