Protein atmosphere

The protein atmosphere, also called the primordial protein atmosphere or albumen atmosphere, formed according to Rudolf Steiner during the earth's evolution through the formative influence of the music of the spheres, after the earth condensed to a liquid state after the sun's exit during the Lemurian period. This process was promoted by the compressing forces of the moon, which had not yet separated from the earth at that time.

„Now the time came when the sun peeled out of the earth again. The finest matter and entities formed an independent world body so that our earth orbited the sun. The emergence of the finest matter was connected with a condensation of the remaining matter. On the one hand the finely luminous body of the sun emerges, on the other hand the matter of the earth becomes much denser. It comes into a watery state, denser than our sea water, for it also contained everything that is solid today. With the becoming liquid a new element appears. To the extent that the water appears, the music of the spheres, the sounds of the world, works out of the cosmos and out of the earth. It is not such music as today, which is propagated through the air. The development of the earth is now under the influence of the world music. Matter emerges as individual substances from the undifferentiated, great matter. The earthly substances begin to dance under the influence of the world music. This is the differentiation of matter into organic matter, for example into protein. Thus organic matter, the protoplasm, came into being under the influence of the world music, similar to the Chladnian sound figures today. These substances, protein-like, glutinous matter, are pushed into the earlier lines of force of the human germ. The cells, which today are regarded as the first in the history of the development of organisms, came into being much later. They were only born from certain beings. The atom, too, is never the original, is always that which falls out of the whole. The whole is never composed of the cells. The whole process was promoted by the fact that the moon was still in the earthly body. The three human races that went through these times are the Polar, the Hyperborean and the Lemurian. Then the moon separated from the earth.“ (Lit.:GA 98, p. 215)

„Just as light came into being with the creation of air, a counter-image came into being with the compression of air into water. Just as air relates to light, so water relates to sound, to tone. Of course, sound can pass through the air and causes the air to vibrate; this makes it audible. But originated, occurred on the earth is the sound - as a sound for itself - next to the formation of water. And just as the air has been flowed through by the effect of light, so now all the water into which the air has condensed - we now have the earth consisting of heat, air and water - is completely vibrated through by rays of sound. Our earth is now most permeated in those parts where it has become watery by spherical harmonies, by tones which thus flow into our earth from the space of the world in all possible tonal harmonies; and the result of these tonal effects in the water is a very, very important one. You must of course imagine that in this original water, in this liquid earth water, all the substances were contained which are now separated out as metals, minerals and so on. It is particularly interesting to direct the spiritual gaze to this ancient time, to see how the most diverse forms emerge from the water, in that the sound creates forms in the water. The sound creates shapes in the water. It is a quite wonderful time in the development of our earth. At that time, something happened to the greatest extent in the development of the earth, like when you sprinkle fine dust on a metal plate and stroke the plate with a violin bow. You know what regular figures are created there. Thus, through the music flowing in from the space of the world, the most diverse shapes and figures were formed, and the substances which were dissolved in the water, which were themselves watery, they obeyed the music of the world and arranged themselves according to the music of the world. And the most important formation of the dance of substances according to the world music is the protein, the protoplasm, as it is the basis of all living formation. Let the materialists think all they like about the mechanical assemblage of albumen from oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and so on. The original protoplasm, albumen, has formed from the world-matter, which has formed from the harmonies of the world-music. And so the substances in the living are arranged in the sense of the world music. So now, around the fine formations and especially in them, there is arranged that albuminous substance, that protoplasm, which permeates everything. Along those lines which I have described to you as heat lines, the water, coagulated into protein according to the tone of the world, runs and gradually passes into blood formation. In the nerve lines the coagulated water sets in as the protein formation. And at first the protein formed like a kind of shell, like a cartilaginous glue substance, one might say, so that there is protection against the outside. All this really formed after the dance of the substances in accordance with the music of the spheres.

All this was there before there was a single cell. The cell is not the original organism, but that which I have now described to you, the spiritual, is the original organism, first present as a heat being, then indicated more in lines of force, then intercalating into these lines of force that which arose from the harmony of the spheres through the arrangement of substances; and relatively late, as the last of the formations, only the cell arose.

The cell, as the last separation, had already to be born of a living being. It has never been the case that organisms have developed from cells, but the cell has first formed from living matter. The anatomical is always a consequence of the composite. We have all this in the beginning of that state where the moon was still in the earth and the sun was already outside. But as long as the moon remained in the earth, this protein formation hardened more and more, and it would finally have come to the point I have described to you as mummification, if the coarsest substances and the coarsest beings had not gone out of the earth. The last thing to develop out of the human being at that time were the nerves that go to the sense organs. But the sense organs were not yet open. They had been formed from within, but they were not yet open. And so now the moon goes out with the coarsest substances. The consequence of this stage of development is that man can gradually pass over to a higher state by opening his senses, so that, as it were, the two bodies which are now outside balance each other from without. While they built up the human being as long as they were connected with the earth, they now act from outside, they now open his senses and make him into the seeing and hearing being as he appears to us today.“ (Lit.:GA 102, p. 89ff)

Steiner described these processes in even greater detail later in his lectures on "Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres" (CW 232):

The primordial protein atmosphere and the formation of plants and animals; blackboard drawing from GA 232, Dornach, 1 December 1923 (Fifth Lecture)

„If we only go back to the Lemurian age and a little further, we will find a completely different composition of the earth than we have now.

Let us start from the atmosphere in which we now live, and which we ourselves regard as inanimate, as lifeless. Even this atmosphere presents itself to us as a completely different one [...]

Oxygen, nitrogen, potassium, sodium and so on, all the less heavy so-called metals, did not exist at all in those older times. On the other hand, in this earthly environment, here in this circle, which at that time formed what we today call the atmosphere, there was something which was extremely fluid, something between our present water and the air in the middle; it was fluid, but in its fine fluidity it was similar to protein. So that at that time the earth was completely surrounded by a protein atmosphere. Today's egg white in a hen's egg is much coarser, but it can be compared with it.

This earthly environment was such that when the earth later became denser, there separated out, differentiated out of this environment what we today call carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and so on. But it was not in such a way that one could say that the protein atmosphere of that time was composed of it, because it did not have these individual substances as parts.... The carbon in there is not carbon, the oxygen is not oxygen and so on, but it is a higher substance. And as I said, intrinsically I can describe it as very, very liquid protein. But this whole substance surrounding the earth at that time was permeated from the universe with cosmic ether, which animated this whole substance. So that we have to imagine the cosmic ether as projecting into this substance and animating it [...]

There were no chemical elements in it in today's sense, but such formations arose that remind us of the effects of the chemical elements of today. Then the whole was interspersed with light-reflections, light-shines, light-irradiations, light-darkenings. And finally the whole was warmed by the ether of the world [...]

The first thing that formed out of the cosmos is what I described yesterday: the first primeval mountains. They formed out of the cosmos. So that the quartz crystals that you find outside in the primordial mountains in their beautiful form, in their relative transparency, are formed, as it were, from the universe into the earth. That is why, when today the imaginative observer places himself in these primordial rocks, in these hardest forms of the earth, they are his eyes out into the universe. But the universe has also placed these eyes of the earth; they are now within. The universe has placed them in the earth. But the quartz, the silicic acid-like substance that penetrated into the whole atmosphere and was gradually deposited as primordial mountains, was not as hard as it is today. It was only later, through the later conditions, that this hardening, in which it stands today in the primeval mountains, fell into place. All that was formed out of the universe at that time was hardly harder than wax [...]

The primordial rocks come from the cosmos as dripping wax [...]

Silicic acid has a wax form in the time in which it is transferred from the cosmos into the earth. And that which is more spiritually present today, and which I described to you yesterday, that one has images of the cosmos in this dense rock when one puts oneself into it, that was there in those days quite vividly, and in such a way that when such a batch - forgive me for using the expression, but it actually describes the right thing - of wax pebbles approached in its transparency, one could distinguish something in it like a kind of plant image... But at that time it was something quite ordinary that came into the atmosphere, into this protein atmosphere, pushed along, as it were, like images that were not only seen, but like images that were photographed inside this wax body, but were physically photographed - that with it these images from the cosmos were pushed in.

And then the peculiar thing happened that the liquid albumen that was there filled these pictures; this in turn made them a little harder, a little denser; they were then no longer pictures. The siliceous matter fell away from them, dispersed into the rest of the atmosphere, and in the oldest Lemurian times we have the mighty floating plant formations, reminiscent of our algae of today, which were not rooted in the soil - such a soil was not yet there at all -, which in this liquid protein, from which they formed their own substance, with which they permeated themselves, which swam inside this liquid protein, but not only swam, but the thing was in such a way that they gleamed, I would like to say, lighted up, then passed away again, were there again, passed away again. They were changeable; changeable to the extent that they came into being and disappeared [...]

Drawing from GA 232, p. 77

If a man of today could place himself in those times ... he would see everywhere: a plant image appears, a mighty plant image, similar to our algae or palms of today, but it shoots up - it does not grow out of the earth in spring and disappear in autumn, but it shoots up, appearing in the springtime - the springtime is much shorter - and then it attains its mightiness, then it disappears again in the liquid-protein-like element. Such an observer would have this sight of the ever-greening and ever-again greening. And he would not speak of the plants that cover the earth, but he would speak of the plants that appear like air clouds from the cosmos, become dense, dissolve - a greening in the protein atmosphere [...]

These plants that one sees there in the atmosphere are, for that time, separations, secretions of the human. The human being puts this out of his beingness, which is still one with the whole earth. And he must have this idea for something quite different which he puts out there. The following also happens. Everything I have described so far is due to the fact that the silicic acid in the atmosphere has already been deposited in the wax form of which I have spoken. But otherwise this protein atmosphere is everywhere. The cosmos acts on it; the infinitely manifold forces act on it, which radiate down from the cosmos everywhere to the earth, those forces of which our present-day knowledge wants to know nothing at all [...]

And these cosmic forces acted on some parts of this protein in such a way that they made it look as if it had coagulated, so that cosmic coagulated protein could be seen everywhere. That's what was floating in there: cosmic coagulated protein. But these were not just any clouds, this cosmic coagulated protein, but they were living things in certain forms. They were actually animals that consisted of this coagulated protein, which developed to the density of jelly, even to the density of our present cartilage mass. Such jelly animals were in this liquid protein atmosphere. They had the shape that is present in our reptiles, in our lizards and the like, but they were not of such a density, they were present in this gelatinous mass and they were mobile in themselves. Sometimes they had long limbs, sometimes the limbs were contracted again; in short, everything about them was as it is about the snail that can retract its antennae.

Now you see, while this was forming out there, there was already deposited in the earth, apart from the siliceous matter from the universe, that which you find today as the lime constituents of the earth. If you do not go into the primeval mountains, but if you simply go out into the Jurassic, you will find this limestone. This limestone is later, but it also came to the earth from the cosmos just like the siliceous rock, so that the second thing we have here is the limestone in the earth.

But this calcareous matter is constantly seeping in, and essentially this calcareous matter causes the earth to become denser and denser at its core. And then, in certain localities, the calcareous is joined by the siliceous. But this lime retains the cosmic forces. Lime is something quite different from the coarse matter that today's chemists imagine it to be. Lime contains everywhere relatively non-emergent formative forces. And now it is peculiar: if we go into a somewhat later time than that which I have described to you for the coming forth of greening and fading, we find that this whole protein atmosphere actually has a continual going up and down of lime. Lime vapour is formed and again lime rain. The earth has a time when what is now merely evaporated water and falling rain is calcareous substance which goes up and down again, rising and falling. And this is where the peculiarity arises: this lime has a special attraction to this jelly, to these cartilaginous masses. It penetrates them, impregnates them with itself. And through the earthly forces that are in it - I told you, the earthly forces are in it - it dissolves the whole mass of jelly that has formed there as coagulated protein. The lime takes away from the sky what the sky has formed in the protein substance and carries it closer to the earth. And from this gradually arise the animals that have calcareous bones. This is something that develops in the later Lemurian period.

So that in the plants, first of all in their oldest form, we have to see pure gifts from heaven, and in the animals and in all animal formation we have to see something which the earth, after heaven had given it the lime, has taken away from heaven - really really taken away! - and made it into an earthly structure. These are the things that come so strangely to mind from this most ancient time, and with which one feels thoroughly connected, so that one now also feels this whole process as a process of the human being extended, so to speak, into the cosmos [...]

But all this is connected with many other processes. I am describing to you, as it were, the most important processes in a sketchy way. Many other things happen. For example, while what I have described was happening, the whole atmosphere was still filled with finely dispersed sulphur. This finely dispersed sulphur combines with other substances, and from this combination of finely dispersed sulphur with other substances, I would like to say, the fathers or mothers of all that is present in the ores today as pyrite, galena, zincblende and so on. So all this is formed in an older form, in a soft, still densely waxy form in those days. Thus the earth's body is permeated by such things. And then, when these ores, this metalline, emerges from the general protein-like substance and forms the solid earth's crust, then the metals actually have not much else to do in it, unless man does something with them than think about what has happened. And this is also the case with them. They are found in a state where they make everything that has happened to the earth present to the inner vision [...]

All that I have described to you here was necessary, man had to separate it out, just as he has to separate out sweat or other things today. Man had to separate this so that he was no longer a being in which only the gods wanted, but so that he could become a being with his own will, so that he could have his own will, even if it was not yet free. All this was necessary for the preparation of man's earthly nature.

Now, as many other things happened, all this changed. Of course, when the ores were there, separated in the earth, the whole atmosphere changed. It became different, it became much less sulphurous. Oxygen gradually got the upper hand over sulphur, whereas in ancient times sulphur had a very strong significance for the earth's atmosphere. The whole earth-atmosphere became different.

In this renewed environment, man was able to put other things out of himself, to separate other things. What he now segregated appears like the descendants of the earlier plants and the earlier animals. Now, gradually, the later plant forms formed, which had a kind of root, but in earth substance that was still quite soft. And out of what were reptiles, lizard-like animals, more complicated animals were formed, animals which today's geology still finds in imprints and the like. Nothing more is found of the very oldest of which I have spoken here. Only then, in the later epoch, when man - for a second time, so to speak - created more complicated formations out of himself, only then was there what I have described to you here, what I would like to say were ever-emerging and passing cloud formations, greening, fading, soft-massed animal-like shapes, but which were real animals, which soon contracted and had a life of their own, and soon again lost themselves in a general life on earth, for that was the case with all these beings. Out of all this something arose that was more solidified in itself. And so such animals came into being, like the one that looked like this for that time, if you want to draw it schematically: it had a very large eye-like organ with a kind of aura; attached to it was a kind of snout, which, by the way, was still extended forward; then something like a lizard's body, but with powerful fins. So something like a structure came into being, which now already had more solidity in it. We have such animals, which have something like, I might as well say wings like fins. For the animal was not a sea creature, the sea did not exist at that time; it was a soft earth mass and the still soft element of the environment, from which only the sulphur was somewhat removed. But in there flew or swam - it was an activity between flying and swimming - such an animal (see drawing p. 84). Besides there were other animals which did not have this kind of limbs, but limbs which were already more formed out of the forces of the earth itself, which already reminded one of the limbs of today's lower mammals and so on.

Drawing from GA 232, p. 84

Thus, a person who, starting from today, instead of wandering through space, wanders back through time to that time which connects the Lemurian Age with the Atlantean Age, would be presented with a special sight: Such huge flying lizards with a lantern on their heads, glowing and warming; below, something like a soft, bog-like earth, but which has something extraordinarily homely about it, because it would present to the visitor of today a kind of smell that stands between the scent of fashion and the scent of greening plants in the midst of it. Something seductive on the one hand and extraordinarily pleasant on the other would be offered by this mud of soft earth. And in there again, moving about like swamp animals, are then these other animals, which already have more limbs, reminiscent of the lower mammals of today, but which are so extended downwards that they have such powerful things at the top below (it is drawn) - more powerful, of course, than the duck-discs, with which they move about in this swamp, but also again weigh up and down.

You see, humanity had to go through all this segregation so that man could be prepared for independent feeling in his earthly existence.

Thus we have a first vegetal-animal creation, which actually consists of the products of man's segregation, and which prepared him to become a volitional being as an earthly human being. If all this had remained in him, then his wanting would have taken over. His wanting would have become an entirely physical event. Because he has separated this out, the physical is gone from him, and the willing takes on a soulish character. In the same way, through this second creation, feeling takes on a soul-like character. And it is only in the later Atlantean period, in the middle of the Atlantean period, that mammals come into being and these plants, plants and animals, which are already similar to ours. At that time the earth was already formed in such a way that it looked very similar to what it is now. Thus there are already the chemical substances, the substances known to today's chemists. This is how the carbon, the oxygen, the alkaline, the heavy metals, and so on, gradually come into being. That already comes out of it. With this, however, man can separate from himself the third, that which he finds today in his environment as the vegetable, animal world. And by separating this, by this creation that surrounds him coming into being around him, he is prepared for his existence on earth as a thinking being.

So we can say that humanity at that time was not divided into individuals as people are today; it was a general humanity, still of a spiritual nature, sinking into the ether. For with the ether flowing towards the earth from the universe, this general humanity came out of the universe. It then went through the processes I have described in "Occult Science": it came, went away again to the other planets and came back again in the Atlantean time. This took place incidentally. For each time something like this was set apart, humanity could not remain with the earth, it had to go away, so to speak, in order to first strengthen the inner forces, which were now much finer, of a spiritual nature. Then it came down again.“ (Lit.:GA 232, p. 72ff)

Rudolf Steiner gave a more popular, but at the same time very comprehensive account in his Workers' Lectures (Lit.:GA 354, p. 29ff):

„So that we have an original state of the earth which is a thickened liquid. And around it we also have a kind of air, but we did not have such air as we have today. Just as the water did not look like our water today, the air was not like our air today. Our air today contains mainly oxygen and nitrogen. The other substances that the air still contains are still present in very small quantities. Even metals are actually still present in the air, but in terribly small quantities [...]

Drawing from GA 354, p. 31

Now, you must imagine that the earth once looked like this. If you had been on this earth with today's eyes, then you would not have come to such a view that there were stars out there, that there were sun and moon; for you would not have seen the stars, but you would have looked into an indeterminate sea of air which would have ceased after some time. If you had been able to live at that time with the present sense organs, you would have been, as it were, inside a world egg, beyond which you would not have seen. It would have been like being inside a world egg! And you can imagine that in those days the earth would have looked different: completely filled with a huge egg yolk, a thick liquid, and with a very thick air environment - that is what the egg white in the egg represents today.“ (Lit.:GA 354, p. 30ff)

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Natur- und Geistwesen – ihr Wirken in unserer sichtbaren Welt, GA 98 (1996), ISBN 3-7274-0980-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Das Hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in den Menschen, GA 102 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-1020-5 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Mysteriengestaltungen, GA 232 (1998), ISBN 3-7274-2321-8 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die Schöpfung der Welt und des Menschen. Erdenleben und Sternenwirken, GA 354 (2000), ISBN 3-7274-3540-2 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.